tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513Thu, 08 Dec 2016 17:45:44 +0000BlogpoliticsPOLITICS.Doctor WhoMusicGodDOCTOR WHO.2015ComicsCOMIC BOOKSFOLK MUSICRELIGIONMUSIC.Nice ThingsStar WarsDaily ExpressMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANTHE YEAR OF WAITING FOR STAR WARSMOVIESBooksFilmsSeason 5BOOKS.C.S LewisRichard DawkinsDave SimMr Joseph CampbellOperaTOLKIEN and LEWISGeneral TVSaddam HussienTolkienBob DylanFolk FestivalGiles FraserMONTY AWARDSTELEVISIONCaptain AmericaArrr....FascismPuppiesthe BeatlesKickstarterMEvideosMr. Harry PotterchristmasGAMESPlaysRPGsTHEATERThe Amazing Andrew Rilstone's Bloghttp://www.andrewrilstone.com/noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)Blogger1080125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-5064029822449646609Thu, 08 Dec 2016 02:29:00 +00002016-12-08T02:29:55.386+00:00Info and RequestIf anyone has any knowledge of "G Suite" could they please get in touch?<br /><br />It is 2.25 AM and after 4 hours on line, I am no closer to re-registering my andrewrilstone.com domain.<br /><br />It was set up through "Blogger", but Google requires it to be renewed through a new app called "G Suite": you appear not to be able to register with the app unless you have a password, and you cannot get a password until you a registered with the app. You also have to be registered with the app before you can ask the help desk how to register with the app.<br /><br />Anyone with any experience of this, please get in touch. Otherwise this blog is likely to revert to to<br /><br /><br />andrewrilstone.co.uk<br /><br />or even<br /><br />andrewrilstone.blogspot.com<br /><br />and presumably none of the existing links will work.<br /><br />Ho, hum.http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/12/info-and-request.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-5086648245491778866Tue, 06 Dec 2016 00:49:00 +00002016-12-06T00:49:41.568+00:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Goals</a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">$60 &nbsp;-&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">POLITICAL ESSAY: &nbsp;</span></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">If my Patreon pledges get up to this level, I will publish my essay explaining whether or not I think Donald Trump is a good thing and what should be done about it.&nbsp;</a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">[</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 24px;">IN ADDITION TO THE ONGOING SPIDER-PROJECT]</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/12/goals-60-political-essay-if-my-patreon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-5318784921605153483Tue, 06 Dec 2016 00:24:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.045+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #15<div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>Kraven the Hunter</b></i></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XGU8BmYXuvA/WES2JGjz3RI/AAAAAAAAGRM/UxNqJXPfmIMhdeuyQ8a_wf7-QJ8GkxtmQCEw/s1600/ASM15%2B-%2BCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XGU8BmYXuvA/WES2JGjz3RI/AAAAAAAAGRM/UxNqJXPfmIMhdeuyQ8a_wf7-QJ8GkxtmQCEw/s400/ASM15%2B-%2BCover.jpg" width="267" /></a><i style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace; font-size: xx-large; text-align: justify;">Villain:</i></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Kraven the Hunter + The Chameleon</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: x-large;"><i>Supporting Cast:</i></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">J Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Betty Brant, Flash Thompson, Liz Allan,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Mrs Watson and a chorus of police officers and crooks.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /> </span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: x-large;"><i>Observations:</i></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Peter Parker still wearing those red jim-jams. He evidently prefers wet-shaving to electric razors (or else uses an awful lot of soap to wash his face with!)</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Peter Parker hates it when Liz and Betty call him "Petey". I wonder if this is because it was the nickname Uncle Ben used for him? (May hasn't used it since Ben died.) </span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">When Spider-Man sees the Chameleon impersonating Kraven he says "my spider sense feels different, as if it isn't sure". The spider-sense doesn't merely alert him to danger: he is consciously using it to track Kraven.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">On page 13 Peter Parker says he is going to put a spider-tracer on Kraven, but this idea is never mentioned again.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Peter Parker used to read comic books about superheroes and "dream about how great it would be if he could become one." Marvel Comics were not publishing superhero titles between 1955 and 1959 (the "Atlas" revival having petered out in 1954); but DC's Silver Age revival had got under way in 1956. Marvel's most iconic hero probably grew up reading Flash and Green Lantern.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Kraven's potion makes Spider-Man's hands shake uncontrollably (meaning he can't shoot webbing) but leaves his strength and agility intact, again suggesting that the spider-strength is not a physical ability.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Kraven can lift a fully grown gorilla — which weighs about 300-400 lbs — making him about half as strong as Spider-Man…</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Retroactive continuity has made the Chameleon and Kraven half-brothers. This doesn't help.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">The Chameleon, a Russian spy, and Kraven, an African, are deported to South America. (In fact, they bribe their way off the boat and come back to America, where Kraven is immediately punched out by Iron Man.)</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></b></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Peter Parker's Financial Situation: </b>Peter sells Jameson two sets of photos: one of Spider-Man stopping a burglary, and one of the fight with Kraven. The first lot are "not bad"; and although the second lot "deserve a bounus" all Peter gets is one of Jameson's personal bars of chocolate! Shall we say $500 for the first lot and $1,000 for the second?</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gD-km9h28JE/WES2JJ599DI/AAAAAAAAGRQ/Pnn27q_t7-ca4Luw2r4BBMN4h_FQdbJKwCEw/s1600/ASM15%2B-%2BKraven%2BArrives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gD-km9h28JE/WES2JJ599DI/AAAAAAAAGRQ/Pnn27q_t7-ca4Luw2r4BBMN4h_FQdbJKwCEw/s320/ASM15%2B-%2BKraven%2BArrives.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another issue: another iconic villain, another lacklustre story-line.</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Kraven is a white African with a silly moustache who dresses in lion-skins. He is a big-game hunter who has come to New York to hunt Spider-Man, because he regards him as the ultimate prey. This is an obvious lift from "The Most Dangerous Game". (The hunter in the movie is named Count Zarof: retroactive continuity will decide that Kraven is Count Kravinoff.) In this first episode, Kraven doesn't come across as a particularly noble or honourable adversary — he injects Spider-Man with a potion to weaken him; he lures him under a tree where he has already set up a net-trap and he puts magnetised shackles on his wrist and feet to make it harder for him to run away. Possibly J.Jonah Jameson, or the comics code, had insisted that he did not use more conventional crossbows or blowpipes? </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">The big hunt in the park is not without its tension or drama. Pages 20-22 are particularly fine: Spider-Man shorts out all the street lights; he can find his way in the dark with his spider sense and Kraven cannot. We get two pages of Kraven running from Spider-Man, with Spider-Man shining his spider signal on him, and eventually trapping him in a web. Rather unnecessarily, Stan Lee points out that the hunter has become the hunted. Spider-Man himself abandons his normal repartee to announce </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ubGyk5MZ_yE/WES2JXxakUI/AAAAAAAAGRU/KMxM75_efzMWwxG_T8ezddZUgjNYEfgPACEw/s1600/ASM15%2B-%2BKraven%2BKaptured.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ubGyk5MZ_yE/WES2JXxakUI/AAAAAAAAGRU/KMxM75_efzMWwxG_T8ezddZUgjNYEfgPACEw/s320/ASM15%2B-%2BKraven%2BKaptured.jpg" width="259" /></a>"And like all those who flee in blind panic…in unreasoning fear and cowardice…the hunter at last is… CAUGHT!!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man thinks that Kraven is "the worst kind of enemy; a nut who fights you just for the sheer fun of it". The idea that a great-white-hunter should want to defeat Spider-Man because he presents a challenge makes a great deal more comic-book sense than Mysterio and the Green Goblin starting their careers by attacking Spider-Man because that's what criminals do. So the addition of a second villain, the Chameleon, seems unnecessary. In issue #1, he was specifically a Commie spy; but he has come back to America to "resume his crime career" and like the Goblin, takes it for granted that you have to kill Spider-Man before you can do any serious criming. So the Chameleon asks Kraven to come to New York and get rid of Spider-Man for him, arguably removing Kraven's Unique Selling Point. I wonder if it was felt that a Zarof figure — motivated by a misplaced sense of honour — was too sympathetic a villain for the Comics Code and some reason had to be found to make him unambiguously a Baddie?</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ji8Ug6QOHlk/WES2MfikmZI/AAAAAAAAGRg/ZJkK73-d3V8T5himLILlXhD6eEbYhNwYgCEw/s1600/steve-ditko-amazing-spider-man-15.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ji8Ug6QOHlk/WES2MfikmZI/AAAAAAAAGRg/ZJkK73-d3V8T5himLILlXhD6eEbYhNwYgCEw/s400/steve-ditko-amazing-spider-man-15.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Stan Lee famously defined the Marvel formula as "superheroes with super-problems": and one of his origin myths has Martin Goodman rejecting the Spider-Man character because he didn't think readers would go for a hero who had a lot of personal problems. Over the last few issues – what I am arbitrarily going to call the Villains Trilogy — the idea of "Peter Parker's Problems" as separate and distinct from the main plot line has come to the fore. Stories like "Nothing Can Stop the Sand Man" and "The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain" had skillfully entwined Peter's personal life with Spider-Man's adventures. "The Man Called Electro" had the Parker story and the spider-story as two equally important threads running in parallel. But in the Villains Trilogy it has increasingly felt as if we are cutting away from the main story to look at some scenes from Peter Parker's life. Peter's problems have only minimal impact on his fight with the villain, and the fight with the villain doesn't significantly affect his personal life. </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Those "problem" scenes are structured far more like a situation comedy than like soap opera. We are never left wondering what the outcome of some Midtown High crisis is going to be be— who will Peter take to the prom, say, or will Flash make the Quidditch team? Rather, characters cycle through a series of more or less fixed moves. Jameson fumes; Liz flirts; Betty is jealous; Flash threatens and Aunt May nags.&nbsp;</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">From issue #12 onward Betty Brant, the sensible office girl who Peter Parker really got on with, has been recast as the trophy female who Peter boasts about taking on dates without necessarily asking her first. Their relationship is permanently on the point of collapse. On page 5 of #13 she complains about Peter's risky job ("Oh, Peter, if only you'd find a different type of work!"). When Peter bites her head off in a typically chauvinistic way, she exclaims "you never spoke to me like that before". In fact, the fight is an almost exact replay of their near break-up in issue #9. ("I'm not Mr Perfect! Sorry to have bothered you" / "I don't tell you how to live your life, don't butt into mine!") She recalls seeing him with Liz and reprimands herself "Oh, stop it Betty Brant! You're becoming jealous" — and from that point on, "jealousy" becomes her only character trait. In #14 when Jonah sends Peter on a photo assignment to Hollywood, Betty makes up a story in her head about him flirting with aspiring actors — and accuses him of cheating before he has even left the room. "I don't claim to be be as glamorous as those starlets…or that blond Liz Allan you've been walking home from school with lately!" </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Betty does have some grounds for concern. Since issue #12, virtually all the school scenes have involved Liz Allan — who used to gang up with Flash to bully Peter — flirting with him shamelessly. In issue #14, she goes so far as to call Peter a "dream boat" (which is what the proto-Liz character Sally called Flash in the very first Spider-Man story.) Liz is every bit as unpleasant to Flash as Flash was to Peter. "He's sensitive, intelligent, articulate! You probably don't know what those words mean!" &nbsp;Her feud with Flash produces one of the funniest moments in the comics — in issue #13, after Peter has vaguely said that Liz's near hairdo is "real nice" Flash does a perfect Ditko double-take and announces "Gosh, Liz, I almost didn't recognize you! You're beautiful now!" to which Liz responds "Really Mister Thompson! And what was I before, pray tell?" </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">It is worth repeating and underlining once again that, whatever we may believe about the "dreaming up" process, all this great dialogue is written by Stan Lee. </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Stan Lee mentions on the letters page that Betty is slightly younger than Peter, that she also went to Midtown High, and that she dropped out of school because she needed a job (and hopes to go back and graduate one of these days). However, it is clear that she doesn't particularly know Flash or Liz: Later Continuity was for once on the right track when it relocated her to Philadelphia. Betty and Liz finally meet in the current issue — Jonah has Betty send for Peter to photograph Kraven's arrival; Flash, Liz and some schoolkids have also come along to watch the celebrity arrive; and Betty Brant automatically assumes that Peter came with Liz.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZErgk31zzvo/WES2J77KQ8I/AAAAAAAAGRc/r3XVvsePwso1aySwc1U_e3h4yH9G57VGgCEw/s1600/Liz-Allan-fixing-peter-parkers-Tie-in-front-of-Betty-Brant-300x291.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZErgk31zzvo/WES2J77KQ8I/AAAAAAAAGRc/r3XVvsePwso1aySwc1U_e3h4yH9G57VGgCEw/s1600/Liz-Allan-fixing-peter-parkers-Tie-in-front-of-Betty-Brant-300x291.jpg" /></a>This scene brings four of the five recurrent characters together (only Aunt May is missing) and Lee takes the opportunity to give us several crowded panels of the entire cast speaking their minds about Peter. Liz deliberately flirts with him in front of Betty; calling him "Petey" and straightening his tie (he's had to do a rapid clothes changes after Kraven's animals escape.) Back in the office, Betty calls him "Petey-wetey" and offers to fix his little "tiezy wiezy" leaving Peter wondering "if females were originally intended for another planet."</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">The current issue adds a new element into the mixture.<br /><br />Aunt May wants to introduce Peter to the niece of her neighbor. Peter automatically assumes that anyone Aunt May wants to set him up with will be ghastly, but allows her to pressure him into it. This is more fuel for Betty's jealousy: when Peter turns down a chance to go out with her (because he's promised May he'll see go on the blind date) she automatically assumes he's going out with Liz. Of course, the neighbor's niece stands Peter up (she "had a headache") and of course Betty is not amused when Peter phones to say that he does want to go out with her after all.<br /><br />Aunt May's neighbor is, of course, Mrs Watston (or possibly Mrs Watkins). Her daughter is Mary-Jane.&nbsp;</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">In years to come Mary-Jane Watson is going to become a central plank of the Spider-Man mythos. But (as with the Green Goblin) we should try not to read these issue in the light of stuff that is going to happen two decades in the future. At this point, Mary-Jane Watson is a running gag. May nags Peter to meet her; Peter eventually agrees; for some reason the date doesn't come off, leaving Peter looking like a cad in front of Betty or Liz. Repeat endlessly. The joke will come to an almost Wildean punchline in a dozen issues' time.&nbsp;</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">We never see Peter and Betty in a social situation — not sharing a coffee or a milk-shake, not going to the movies, nothing. (We see Peter taking Aunt May to the pictures, for goodness sake!) But several episodes end with him saying that he is going on a date with her, or trying to set one up. I wonder if the comics code would have required any dating scene to be so chaste, and so marriage-focused that Lee and Ditko decided it would be better to leave the whole thing to the readers' imaginations?</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Actually, in <i>this</i>&nbsp;reader's&nbsp;imagination, Peter's relationship with Betty would have been pretty chaste and pretty marriage-focused. That's the kinds of kids they are. </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">The whole etiquette of "dating" is pretty weird by today's standards. When Mary-Jane cancels the blind date, Peter calls up Betty and says he can see her after all; when she rebuffs him ("Which Peter?") he calls Liz, who he doesn't even like, to see if she will go out with him instead. He did the same thing in issue #6. This actually veers towards self-destructiveness: if Betty can't bear to see Peter talking to a female school friend, what the hell would she think if she saw them sharing a coffee together? Was there some rule which said that a guy couldn't go to any social event — not to a drugstore or a coffee bar or a skittles alley — without a female escort; so that any lady was better than none, and that just because you were going out with a girl it didn't necessarily follow that you were, so to speak, going out with her? (But if that's the rule, wouldn't Liz and Betty both understand it?)<br /><br />Astonishingly, Liz can't date Peter either because, a few pages after calling him a "muscle bound goop" she is out dancing with Flash Thompson. Which makes one wonder if the whole crush-on-Peter is a double-bluff to get Flash to notice her. Which in turn makes one wonder if Liz is a bigger shit than Flash ever was.</div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter blames the whole situation on a malevolent force he calls "luck". In the early issues, Peter was apt to physically break down and say "It's not fair; I wish I'd never gotten my powers". Since issue #8, Parker has acquired some of Spider-Man's bravado; but he has internalized the cry-baby. He begins this issue moaning "it's not my day" (when he stupidly goes to a photo shoot and forgets to take any pictures) and "wishes he had stayed in bed" when it turns out that it's Spider-Man who Kraven the Hunter is going to hunt. After Liz flirts with him and Betty storms out in a huff, he sits on the kerb brooding that being a superhero isn't as much fun as he expected; worries that he's become a "walking jinx" and beats up some housebreakers to cheer himself up. He repeats "just my luck" when he can't date Betty because he's promised to see Mary-Jane; and when he has to spend the night at home because neither Liz nor Betty want to see him he asks "who is sticking pins in a Peter Parker doll?" The episode ends with him wishing he was on the same boat as Kraven and the Chameleon, but adding "I am just not that lucky." </div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W6KiFohFx7s/WES2J4iBBXI/AAAAAAAAGRY/1CuhF3-qhawbMFAhbKSdo0aIzqWgfk0qACEw/s1600/Betty-Fixing-Peter-Parkers-Tie1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W6KiFohFx7s/WES2J4iBBXI/AAAAAAAAGRY/1CuhF3-qhawbMFAhbKSdo0aIzqWgfk0qACEw/s320/Betty-Fixing-Peter-Parkers-Tie1.jpg" width="216" /></a>It is very unhealthy and unattractive to perceive the ordinary ups and downs of life as personal affronts. None of this month's disappointments have anything to do with his powers or his double life: he's caused them all by his own moral cowardice. He could have said to Aunt May "I am already dating Betty. If I go out with Mary, it will look like cheating, and you raised me to be too much of a gentleman to do that." He could have said to Betty "I am really sorry, but my Aunt has forced me to go on a blind date with a neighbor. Please can I take you for a soda tomorrow and we can have a laugh about how awful it was." He choses not to. As will become clearer and clearer in the next few months, the only person sticking pins into the Peter Parker voodoo doll is Peter Parker. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;">Next month, everything will be back to normal. May will be nagging Peter to date Mary Jane; Betty will ask Peter out to dinner (as if nothing has happened); and Peter will be forced to turn her down. And the month after that, Peter will be walking Betty home (as if nothing had happened) and they will bump into Liz... It is as if all the characters have been frozen in time, and won't really be defrosted until The Writer and the Artist finally part company. &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s320/spider_signal.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/12/amazing-spider-man-15.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-3338899476358165815Sat, 03 Dec 2016 18:09:00 +00002016-12-03T18:09:53.557+00:00<div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m going tell you right wing authoritarian nativists; you may be surprised</span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The people in this world are getting organized</span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You're bound to lose: you&nbsp;right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose.</span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">You’re bound to lose; you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Race hatred cannot stop us: this one thing we know</span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Your poll tax and Jim Crow and greed has got to go</span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You're bound to lose: you&nbsp;right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose.</span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">You’re bound to lose: you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">People of every color are m</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">arching side to side</span></div><div align="left" lang="zxx"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Marching across the fields where a million right wing authoritarian nativists died<br />You’re bound to lose; you right wing authoritarian nativistss bound to lose!</span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">All of you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span><br /><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px;">You’re bound to lose; you right wing authoritarian nativists are bound to lose!</span></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/12/im-going-tell-you-right-wing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-7379881509499962637Mon, 28 Nov 2016 12:17:00 +00002016-12-02T23:50:08.694+00:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Hello</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">As some of you may know, I currently use <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">"Patreon"</a> to generate financial support for my writing. I currently have a part time job, and no-one apart from my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Patreon</a> supporters, and the x book sales in 2016, pays me for my writing.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">If you aren't currently supporting me, then go over to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Patreon </a>and have a look. It's a question of clicking a button that says "I'll pay Andrew $1 every time he writes an article, up to a maximum of $5 a month" (say). Anyone with a credit card or a Paypal account can do it.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Everyone who subscribes gets access to my Winnie-the-Pooh e-book and the Autoexegesis (an interesting critique of my writing by my biggest fan) as well as some little videos. They'll get e-books or physical copies of the collected Spider-project when it comes out, as well.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Patreon</a> also does a "goal" system, where I undertake to do certain things if the monthly pledges reach certain levels. I've just activated some new tiers....</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;">$60 -&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">POLITICAL ESSAY: &nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">If we get up to this level, I will publish my essay explaining whether or not I think Donald Trump is a good thing and what should be done about it.&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">[</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 24px;">IN ADDITION TO THE ONGOING SPIDER-PROJECT]</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">$65 RELIGIOUS ESSAY:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">If we get up to this level I will write up my critique of the three worst religious books ever written: "Honest to God" by the Bishop of Woolworths, "God is No Thing" by Rupert Short and "God Woke" by Stan Lee (who &nbsp;he?)&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">[IN ADDITION TO THE ONGOING SPIDER-PROJECT]</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">$70 WHOVIAN ESSAYS&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">If we get up to this level I will tell you what I thought of "Class" the new folk-music containing Doctor Who spin off.&nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #232d32; line-height: 24px;">[THIS WILL LIKELY HAPPEN IN THE SPACE BETWEEN THE 1964 AND 1965 SPIDER ESSAYS.]</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Do pleases think about this. I sometimes wonder if my local government job will survive beyond 2017, and <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Patreon</a> is currently my best shot at surviving as a writer.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iazlPlHBTjw/V7IlEnnNBbI/AAAAAAAAGJw/IzeChWK8a5wF1yusppXwUzgBe3z8IpK7QCPcB/s320/download.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/hello-as-some-of-you-may-know-i.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-5299985166410412500Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:14:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.042+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #14<div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin</i></span></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-875k3EvKwg8/WDstt0Rua1I/AAAAAAAAGQM/BgEWdc56NGUF0fHMzXwy63iqFMAjcyWsQCLcB/s1600/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-875k3EvKwg8/WDstt0Rua1I/AAAAAAAAGQM/BgEWdc56NGUF0fHMzXwy63iqFMAjcyWsQCLcB/s400/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_14.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain: </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Green Goblin + The Enforcers</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Supporting Cast: </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">J Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Betty Brant, B.J Cosmo.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Guest Star: </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Hulk!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Observations:</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">B.J Cosmo (or another director with the same initials) has previously appeared in Journey into Mystery #92, when he hires Thor to provide special effects for his Viking movie.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">“Creature from the Black Lagoon” came out in 1954 and spawned two sequels “Revenge of the Creature” and “The Creature Walks Among us”. Unlike Cosmo’s “The Nameless Thing From the Black Lagoon in the Murky Swamp”, none of them won any awards.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cosmo doesn’t seem to be aware that Spider-Man had a previous career as a TV performer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It takes the three Enforcers and the Goblin to move the boulder over the cave entrance: Spider-Man can’t shift it himself, but tricks the Hulk into smashing it. This suggests that Spider-Man’s strength is a bit less than that of four reasonably fit grown men. (So maybe he can bench press 750lbs/340kg?)</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Hulk’s own comic was canceled in March 1963. After various away-fixtures in the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, he returns as Ant Man’s back up feature in Tales to Astonish #59 (September 64), where it is mentioned in passing that he was “last seen in New Mexico”.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Spins a web, any size: </b>Spider-Man uses his web to catapult himself on the the Goblin’s broomstick. He attaches tumbleweed to the end of his web and “whips up a man made dust-storm.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Peter Parker’s Financial Situation:</b> It appears that both Cosmo and Jameson pay Parker expenses to fly from New York to L.A (about 5 hours), but he&nbsp;chooses&nbsp;to travel back by coach (more like 4 days) to save&nbsp;money. A one way Greyhound from Hollywood to New York would have cost about $50; a flight something around $70, so he’s probably only saving $20. It isn’t clear how he explains the 4 day absence to Jameson, or Aunt May, or Principal Davies; or indeed whether he actually turns in any pictures to J.J.J.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">$50,000 would have been a fairly small fee if B.J really thinks that Spider-Man is as big a star as Tony Curtis, who could command at last $150,000 per appearance.</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--l3122G1QnY/WDsuF5OrgJI/AAAAAAAAGQU/tMgusDDWHPAVg_alKxTwpGQb4S4mtApQQCLcB/s1600/3eab7faee365b0d1a09fd27b6f472fda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--l3122G1QnY/WDsuF5OrgJI/AAAAAAAAGQU/tMgusDDWHPAVg_alKxTwpGQb4S4mtApQQCLcB/s1600/3eab7faee365b0d1a09fd27b6f472fda.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“A Hollywood director, B.J Cosmo, offers Spider-Man $50,000 to star in a movie about his battle with the Enforcers. Spider-Man (still motivated by honest self-interest rather than altruism) agrees. Having traveled to New Mexico, he realizes that he has walked into a trap: he is not fighting actors playing the Enforcers, but the Enforcers themselves. During the fight, he tries to catch his breath in a cave, but the Enforcers roll a huge stone in front of the entrance to trap him inside. Just as the battle seems to be over, he disturbs an ancient Mayan sarcophagus, causing the mummified remains to come to life. He manages to escape from the cave, but the resurrected mummy, who has been christened The Green Goblin, also gets away, vowing vengeance on Spider-Man.”</i></div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not, of course, the plot of the Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin; it's my conjecture as to what Stan Lee's original pitch for the story might have looked like. In the published comic, the Green Goblin is involved from the beginning: it's him who persuades B.J. to makes 'The Spider-Man Story' and it's him who persuades Spider-Man to start in it. The Goblin isn't a demon, but a gadget powered criminal; and it's a Hulk, not a Goblin, who is discovered in the cave. <br /><br />So why do we think that Stan Lee's original version was so different? It so happens we are able to compare and contrast two different accounts of the genesis of the story. First, we have Stan Lee’s version, from the opening page of Spider-Man #14:</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><i>“The gang at the bullpen said “Let’s give our fans the the greatest 12c worth we can! Let’s get a really different villain…a bunch of colorful henchmen for him…And even add a great guest star!! So we did!! And here’s the result… Another Marvel masterpiece…”</i></div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is vintage Lee. We dreamed the story up in one go. What you have in front of you is what we always intended to put in front of you. The credits still use the despicable “written by Stan Lee, illustrated by Steve Ditko” formula, but this text comes much close to saying that the comic — the “dreaming up” process, at any rate — was a collaborative effort involving not just Stan, but the whole “gang at the bullpen”. (Who else was in that gang? Martin Goodman? Stan’s brother Larry? Kirby himself?) The dreaming up process can't have been all that onerous for the gang: their big idea is that the issue should involve, er, a new villain (like last issue did and next issue will) and that he should have some henchmen, and that there should be a guest star. I suppose that does pinpoint one unique selling point for the episode: the last three issues have had Spider-Man fighting a single bad guy; but this issue he has to fight five at once.&nbsp;</div><br /><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">Steve Ditko remembers things slightly differently:</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i> <i>“Stan's synopsis for the Green Goblin had a movie crew, on location, finding an Egyptian-like sarcophagus. Inside was an ancient, mythological demon, the Green Goblin. He naturally came to life. On my own, I changed Stan's mythological demon into a human villain… I rejected Stan's idea because a mythological demon made the whole Peter Parker/Spider-Man world a place where nothing is metaphysically impossible."&nbsp;</i></div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">I don’t think we should automatically accept that every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Ditko is true and assume that everything Stan says is a fib. But Ditko’s claim here is very specific, not especially self-aggrandizing, and makes sense of what is frankly a very strange issue. Why does this dangerous new villain drag Spider-Man from New York to the West Coast simply to start a fight which could just as well have happened in New York? Does the story of B.J Cosmo and his Spider-Man film serve any purpose except as a lead in to yet another extended fight scene? And why is Spider-Man’s confrontation with the big, exciting new villain interrupted and upstaged by the unexpected appearance of the Incredible Hulk? If Stan's original version had Spider-Man's confrontation with the Enforcers interrupted and upstaged by the unexpected appearance of the Green Goblin everything starts to fit into place. Ditko left Stan's structure in place, but turned the sudden appearance of a green goblin-like mummy into an equally sudden appearance by the equally green Hulk. It is, I suppose, possible that Stan Lee dreamed up the idea of a science powered bad-guy whose gadgets had a supernatural flavour; &nbsp;but it is much easier to believe that he pitched “a hobgoblin riding a broomstick” to Ditko, and Ditko reconfigured it as “a criminal dressed as a hobgoblin driving a jet pack in the shape of a broomstick.”<br /><br />Stan Lee dreamed up the story; Steve Ditko pretty much ignored it and came up with a different story of his own; and the result was the most famous of all Spider-Man’s enemies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: start;"></div><div><br /></div><div lang="zxx">That’s collaboration, folks.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The “broomstick” was a step too far for the Comics Code, which still prohibited <i>“scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and were-wolfism”.</i> Presumably they took it for granted that this included allusions to witchcraft; although there is nothing especially witchy about the Goblin. His flying device does have an array of twig like spikes on it, but you could easily fail to realize that they are meant to be the brush of a besom. (The spikes point forward, between the Goblin's legs, which is in line with traditional folklore depictions of witches, but not with popular fairy tale illustrations, or Mr Harry Potter, whose brushes generally point behind them.)<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DZ85CMKvNGY/WDsuUMvRO7I/AAAAAAAAGQY/qPDiicCbd3YSffKmZG8kA_mcSd5Th00cwCLcB/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DZ85CMKvNGY/WDsuUMvRO7I/AAAAAAAAGQY/qPDiicCbd3YSffKmZG8kA_mcSd5Th00cwCLcB/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Barnum and Bailey circus strongman named Pierre Gasner performed a trick in which he broke break a chain across his own chest, seemingly by expanding his muscles. The back page of Superman #1 famously showed Superman performing the same stunt — an image which became the company trademark of DC comics. Page 10 of this issue contains a clear reference to this iconic image. Montana&nbsp;—&nbsp;the lasso wielding member of the Enforcers — entangles Spider-Man in his ropes, but the hero&nbsp;succeeds in breaking them across his chest. "One thing he didn't count on was my power of CHEST EXPANSION!!" thinks Spider-Man, in a frequently mocked panel. (The <a href="http://www.superdickery.com/?s=spider-man">“Superdickery” </a>website describes this as “Spider-Man acquiring Superman’s power of making up powers as I need them.”) Now, there is certainly a problem — which will get worse and worse as the years role on — of the heroes and villains feeling the need to provide a running commentary on their every move:<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><i>“Surrounding me and beating me are two different things! You can’t throw that lasso fast enough to snare me, Montana!”</i></div><div lang="zxx"><i><br /></i></div><div lang="zxx"><i>“Maybe he can’t. But Fancy Dan can grab you while you’re dodging the rope.”</i></div><div lang="zxx"><i><br /></i></div><div lang="zxx"><i>“And while you turn away to flip Dan over your head, I can follow up with a hay-maker.”</i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oTIX1YMMrKc/WDsw9m6sgaI/AAAAAAAAGQk/nJiKCGhyzuAlnGP0e8D4RJRX-Vgj1wwlgCLcB/s1600/superman-chains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oTIX1YMMrKc/WDsw9m6sgaI/AAAAAAAAGQk/nJiKCGhyzuAlnGP0e8D4RJRX-Vgj1wwlgCLcB/s200/superman-chains.jpg" width="200" /></a>But this bit of Stanish silliness shouldn’t obscure just how well choreographed the fight scene is. Montana — the lasso guy — ensnares Spidery-Man in his rope; Spider-Man pauses, and physically breaks the ropes (taking Montana out of the fight); the super-strong Ox follows through and punches Spider-Man (knocking him down, but not out) while the other two fall on him. Spider-Man again pauses, thinking <i>“I’ve got to summon all my spider-strength NOW…while they least expect it .. While they’re all confused!!”</i> and then throws all three men off him fairly easily. He uses his web to whip up a dust-storm and runs away into a cave: he does not think he can defeat three bad guys at once. They follow him into the cave, and along with the Goblin, block the entrance with a boulder. (The idea of rolling a stone in front of the entrance to a cave calls to mind Don Blake finding Thor’s hammer in Journey into Mystery #83. And possibly other, even holier, stories.) He picks off Montana (who’s acquired a new lasso) and Fancy Dan (the judo guy) by trapping them from above with his webs; he takes the Ox by surprise and knocks him out with a single punch. Suddenly the Goblin reappears and starts throwing stun bombs at Spider-Man: just as we are expecting a final fight with the main villain, but instead, out of the smoke appears the Hulk.</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, it is fairly clear that when Spider-Man refers to "my power of chest expansion" he is simply saying that Montana hasn't realized that he is strong enough to break ropes with his chest muscles&nbsp;—&nbsp;&nbsp;not that he has a specific, never-before mentioned ability to alter the size of his ribs and pecs. The interesting thing is that he seems to need to pause and focus his mind before doing the rope-breaking trick. Similarly, having been knocked down fairly easily by the Ox, he has to consciously “summons all of his Spider-Strength” before throwing the three guys off him. This appears to confirm that Spider-Man’s power is a supernatural or psychic force which he has to channel; not a physical enhancement. The Ox specifically says that he is surprised that "such a skinny runt" can be so strong.</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aFMShgBgk2Q/WDsxJaXulXI/AAAAAAAAGQo/iraFVsgUwis08oXhJeaADq7ZdAWRmwn5gCLcB/s1600/ASM14%2B-%2BHulk%2BAttacks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aFMShgBgk2Q/WDsxJaXulXI/AAAAAAAAGQo/iraFVsgUwis08oXhJeaADq7ZdAWRmwn5gCLcB/s400/ASM14%2B-%2BHulk%2BAttacks.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1964, the Hulk was still as word as any other Stan Lee baddie, saying “My only defense against mankind is my strength and nothing will stop me from using it” rather than “Hulk smash!” It seems to me that Ditko is already drawing a savage, bestial Hulk, but Stan Lee hasn’t worked out what kind of dialogue he should have. This does lead to one of the best of Spider-Man’s one-liners</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Even deep in my hidden caves, you attack me! But no-one can capture the Hulk!"</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Capture you!? Brother, I don’t even wanna share the same planet with you!"</i></div><br /><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">It is perhaps deliberate that we see two punches from the Ox knock Spider-Man down but fail to knock him out. When Spider-Man finally gets a good punch in against the Ox, he renders him instantly unconscious. (Spider-Man uses the rather dubious expression “love-tap”, implying he isn’t hitting him as hard as he could.) But when Spider-Man punches the Hulk, he hardly notices, and Spider-Man actually injures his fist!</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lT3cPnKxUUc/WDsxtAF7kII/AAAAAAAAGQs/aIrZYDePHqgwR_K7205Vj4lBudkRSLmDwCLcB/s1600/8484ed064f10b0416eb38db0315ca139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lT3cPnKxUUc/WDsxtAF7kII/AAAAAAAAGQs/aIrZYDePHqgwR_K7205Vj4lBudkRSLmDwCLcB/s1600/8484ed064f10b0416eb38db0315ca139.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Green Goblin will eventually supplant Doctor Octopus as Spider-Man’s “arch-enemy”; and his whole persona will be subsumed into the single fact that he knows Spider-Man’s secret identity. And of course, everyone knows that the Goblin’s secret identity will turn out to be Norman “my best friend’s father” Osborne. Sam Rami positioned him as a literally Satanic figure, the opponent of Toby Maguire's Christ-in-spandex. But at this point, the Green Goblin isn’t any of these things. Stan Lee himself is a little unsure about the character, admitting on the cover that he may be too cute and funny looking to be a bad guy. And while the cover promises us that he’s “the most dangerous foe Spider-Man has ever fought” it isn’t exactly clear what makes him so threatening. He has a flying broomstick, shoots sparks from his fingers, and throws what are described as “stun bombs” at Spider-Man. The “stun bombs” still look like grenades. (They wont be re-themed as Jack O’Lanterns until the Goblin’s second appearance.)</div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This Goblin is simply a wannabee gangster. ("It just proves how hard it is to make a career of crime! You can never think of everything!) His ojbjective (revealed in a soliloquy on the final page) is to “organize a world-wide crime syndicate” with the Big Man’s old henchmen as his lieutenants. Why this involves defeating Spider-Man isn’t quite clear. Are we to suppose that Spider-Man is no so adept at catching thieves that there would be no point in setting yourself up as head of the newer, bigger Thieves Guild without first putting him out of action? Or is the idea that the Enforcers want their revenge on Spider-Man, because he sent the to prison for very nearly three months, and the Goblin has told them that he will deliver Spider-Man up to them if they will work for him thereafter? Either way, the Goblins plan is convoluted even by super-villain standards:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1: Persuade Cosmo to make a film about Spider-Man</div><div style="text-align: justify;">2: Persuade Cosmo to hire Spider-Man himself to star in the film</div><div style="text-align: justify;">3: Persuade Cosmo to hire him, the Green Goblin, to appear in the film as himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">4: Persaude &nbsp;Cosmo that the Enforcers are merely actors dressed up to look like the Enforcers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">5: Act as go-between to arrange a meeting between Spider-Man and Cosmo. (The usual method would be to put an advertisement in the Bugle, informing Spider-Man that an honest $50,000 is on offer.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">6: Travel back to Hollywood with Cosmo, Spider-Man and the Enforcers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">7: Wait until everyone has been driven out to New Mexico for the first days shooting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">8: Reveal that the whole thing has been a trick, and allow the Enforcer's to attack Spider-Man</div><div style="text-align: justify;">9: Once Spider-Man has been defeated, become Top Criminal</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And it would have worked, too, if not for that pesky Hulk...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Lee and Ditko are clearly setting up the the Goblin as a villain of some importance. He is going to make four more appearances in the Ditko years, far more than any other super villain. A great deal is made of the fact that the Goblin is still at large at the end of the episode, and a great deal is made of the fact that no-one knows who he really is. The first panel of the comic shows the Goblin mask in the foreground, while a shadowy figure puts the finish touches to the code-baiting broomstick; the final panels show him pulling the mask off and, with his face obscured, announcing that “the world hasn’t heard the last of…the Green Goblin.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It certainly hasn't.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/hello-as-some-of-you-may-know-i.html"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/amazing-spider-man-14.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-7278671711375522511Tue, 22 Nov 2016 21:56:00 +00002016-11-23T01:21:06.426+00:00<span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">sensational evidence emerges that, despite huge effort to suppress the text, at least one person has read the Autoexegesis</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><a href="https://reprog.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/on-on-on-monday-i-placed-two-apples/">On “On “On Monday I placed two apples””</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Rilstone is thought to still be making copies of the self-styled text available to people who pledge at least $1 per month to his cause via the so-called <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/autoexegesis-7147077">Patreon website.&nbsp;</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/autoexegesis-7147077"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GIAbY2FalC0/WAVCtmvLYgI/AAAAAAAAGOE/y4ZecGHl--s7bvYsKBeqK9le7bCmTBROwCPcB/s200/full%2Bcover-page001.jpg" width="143" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/sensational-evidence-emerges-that.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-6174443980104140662Sat, 19 Nov 2016 20:56:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.055+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANThe Amazing Spider-Man #13<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><i>The Menace of Mysterio</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6VLzlFOk6bQ/WDOXOzrHTXI/AAAAAAAAGPY/BJWdcxXXa7cnzgWqaD-BWwzAkRco_0cUwCEw/s1600/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6VLzlFOk6bQ/WDOXOzrHTXI/AAAAAAAAGPY/BJWdcxXXa7cnzgWqaD-BWwzAkRco_0cUwCEw/s400/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_13.jpg" width="260" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain:</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Mysterio</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Supporting Cast:&nbsp;</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, Aunt May, Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">A Psychiatrist and a chorus of police, newsmen and movie actors. &nbsp;</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Observations:</span></b></div><span style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace; text-align: justify;">Peter Parker is still wearing the slightly-too-short red PJs from last issue.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">This is the first time Spider-Man has been referred to as "Spidey" ("ol'Spidey") in the body of the comic, although the nickname was used on the letter page to issue #12.&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Spins a Web, Any Size:</b> Spider-Man makes an “airtight web helmet” which enables him to hold his breath underwater. Apparently.&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;">Failure to Communicate:</b><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">&nbsp;At the bottom of page #3, Peter Parker is </span>soliloquizing<span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"> in a school classroom. But at the top of page 4 ("minutes later") he is helping Aunt May with the washing up. Either Lee or </span>Ditko<span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"> has inadvertently conflated two separate scenes.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; text-align: justify;"><b>Peter Parker’s Financial Position:</b> Aunt May’s savings account is <i>almost</i> used up. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; text-align: justify;">Jameson pays Peter “almost half” what the pictures of Mysterio are worth. Back in #9, he stated that the pictures of Spider-Man fighting Electro (which he paid $1,000 for) were really worth $20,000, so Peter must have got as much as $10,000 this time. This is a fortune: almost two years salary for the average working man, and enough to pay the rent for years to come.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;">Real Estate:</b><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"> Back in issue #1 Aunt May was going to be turned out of her house by her landlord for not paying the <i>rent</i>: this time she is nagging Peter about the <i>mortgage</i>. While someone might use “rent” as a slang term for “mortgage” I don’t think that American banks send sinister men with cigars round to collect mortgage arrears. So we have to assume that at some point between issue #1 and issue #12 Peter and May moved home.&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;">The average price of a house in 1963 was about $10,000 so it is possible that Peter Parker decide against blowing that first paycheque on rent and instead put a 20% deposit on a property. (He could buy a house outright with this months cheque!) &nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MfRAqo1-fdY/WDOXOYfArgI/AAAAAAAAGPM/C3WzcJyEuZwM1qwnAMQgAfG1emsxO3W3wCEw/s1600/ASM13%2B-%2BCrowd%2BReacts%2Bto%2BNews.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MfRAqo1-fdY/WDOXOYfArgI/AAAAAAAAGPM/C3WzcJyEuZwM1qwnAMQgAfG1emsxO3W3wCEw/s400/ASM13%2B-%2BCrowd%2BReacts%2Bto%2BNews.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, the Lizard, Electro, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, Kraven...the first 14 issues of Spider-Man introduce seven of his canonical villains. Ditko's final year would really only add two more characters — the Scorpion and the Molten Man&nbsp;— to the list. (The entire Romita era really only managed two more: — The Kingpin and the Rhino.)<br /><br />Why did the flow of villains stop? Did Stan Lee think that eight recurring bad-guys were sufficient; or did his imagination simply run dry? One theory holds that it was actually Jack Kirby who was "dreaming up" the villains and passing them over to Stan and Steve to flesh out. This isn't inherently ridiculous: in later years Jack was paid by animation and toy companies as an ideas man, and the New Gods pantheon seem to have existed as a figures in a portfolio before he had any story to go with them. It would certainly explain why visually charismatic villains like the Green Goblin and Kraven the Hunter had such relatively lackluster debuts. But it's far more likely that Lee was still thinking in terms of providing Spider-Man with a menagerie of wrestling opponents; while Ditko saw antagonists — Brains and Spider-Slayers and Big Men and Crime Masters &nbsp;— as merely one strand of a story, with little replay value. One can easily imagine Lee saying "Hey! What if Spider-Man's next villain were a great white game hunter...." and leaving Ditko to fill in the details. As Stan progressively handed the reins of the comic over to Steve the villains became less memorable but the actual stories improved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is striking that (having introduced Electro in #10 and given us a double helping of Octopus in #11 and #12), #13, #14 and #15 are each pitched to the reader as the “unveiling” of a new enemy. Stan Lee inserts himself onto the cover of all three issues, reminding the reader that the real creative impetus behind each issue was the guy who <i>dreamed up</i>&nbsp;the idea behind the enemy. &nbsp;"We've created the greatest villain of all for ol'Spidey"; "Only the Merry Marvel Madmen could have dreamed him up.." "So you think there are no new types of villain for Spidey to battle, huh?" All three issues follow the same formula as #12: an eight page narrative set-up which leads into an extended 15 page fight scene.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are inclined to accept my theory that Stan sees Spider-Man as a superhero comic in which the hero wrestles with fabulous villains, and Steve sees Spider-Man as a story about how Peter Parker copes with power and responsibility then these issues belong to Stan Lee. Action, jokes, motive-free villains, fights, fights and more fights. Peter Parker is relegated to a minor sub-plot. Once the rogues gallery is complete, Lee will reward himself with a double-length issues containing not less than six fight scenes. After which, it all goes terribly Ditko.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A_aaHKHmqNI/WDOXOY7IB8I/AAAAAAAAGPQ/EH4llEhSpVQGANxrsd7nGl-dhwXxwyZBACEw/s1600/5345988e7e9a8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A_aaHKHmqNI/WDOXOY7IB8I/AAAAAAAAGPQ/EH4llEhSpVQGANxrsd7nGl-dhwXxwyZBACEw/s400/5345988e7e9a8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Despite my massive affection for it, Amazing Spider-Man #13 is one seriously flawed comic book. A fascinating set-up about a villain trying to gaslight Spider-Man into doubting his own sanity is drowned out, after only a few pages, by an extended fight with a gadgeteer in a kerr-azy suit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The central idea is a fine one. A disgruntled film technician creates special effects which enable him to emulate Spider-Man’s powers, enabling him to frame our hero as a criminal. "I never thought he’d really turn to crime" exclaims a policeman, as "Spider-Man" floats away on a web-parachute after robbing the safe in an office building.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">J. Jonah Jameson is delighted, of course, thinking his hatred of Spider-Man has finally been vindicated. "I want you to find all the old editorials I wrote accusing Spider-Man of being a menace! I want to reprint them so people can see how right I was." It isn’t immediately clear how pictures which appear to show Spider-Man cracking open a safe vindicate Jameson's having printed demonstrable falsehoods about Spider-Man being Electro and the Big Man, but that’s the kind of guy Jameson is. (This is, by the way, the last time J.J.J. is said to be the editor of Now Magazine: from now on, only the Bugle is mentioned.)&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The school kids are shocked, but Flash Thompson continues to believe that Spider-Man is "one of the greatest guys around". This is really the first time Flash has gone from "quite admiring" Spider-Man to having the blind faith of a dedicated fan — a faith which is going to be tested quite severely in the coming months. Betty Brant "can’t believe this of Spider-Man" adding "I still remember how he once saved my life." Actually, he saved her life in two consecutive issues, but Stan Lee’s handling of time means that Turning Point (issue #11) is something which happened a very long time ago. Betty nags Peter about his dangerous job and Peter bites her head off in his usual chauvinistic way. "I don't tell you how to live your life...don't butt into mine." &nbsp;"You never spoke to me that way before!" exclaims Better, to which the reader can only reply "Oh yes he did!" He seems to have forgotten that her brother was recently murdered; but in fairness, so does she.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Parker is as sensible and level-headed about Spider-Man's crime-wave as we have come to expect: reading the reports of the robbery, he very naturally thinks "I must be becoming a split personality" as opposed to, say "Some villain must be impersonating me."&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4W6mFTZyPz4/WDOXPPGttiI/AAAAAAAAGPc/i5LJLGh-Ow8ngIw-1tS5ijUpaSxeI2lswCEw/s1600/fbeecf1a93d66c517c3d536c6a4b71cf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4W6mFTZyPz4/WDOXPPGttiI/AAAAAAAAGPc/i5LJLGh-Ow8ngIw-1tS5ijUpaSxeI2lswCEw/s400/fbeecf1a93d66c517c3d536c6a4b71cf.jpg" width="400" /></a>This issue, more than any previous one, establishes Peter Parker as "the guy with a bunch of problems" and "the guy who worries about everything" — witness him dropping Aunt May’s plates and musing "I don’t know what to worry about first! Paying the mortgage or wondering if I’m a sleep walking criminal."&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the "Spider-Man turns to crime" plot is over-and-done with in about 8 pages. As soon as Mysterio appears on the scene, it is clear to everyone — with the possible exception of Peter Parker and J. Jonah Jameson — that he’s the one criming in a Spider-Man suit. Mysterio challenges Spider-Man to a fight which, true to formula, Spider-Man loses. (Quite a lot is made of this tactical defeat with a morose Parker musing "This will keep me from ever getting too conceited".) But he places a spider-tracer ("small electronically treated Spider-pin") on Mysterio and tracks him down to a "TV movie studio building." There is another fight, which Spider-Man wins. The whole impostor plot is reduced to a set up to lure Spider-Man into a big fight in a movie studio.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is easy enough to believe that a special effects guy could convince the general public that &nbsp;he is Spider-Man. And a supervillain who uses misdirection and illusion to make people <i>think</i>&nbsp;that Spider-Man is a baddie (and to make Spider-Man himself think he is going mad) is a rather original idea. But the second half of his comic dispense with the idea of illusion and misdirection and decide that Mysterio has <i>actually given himself the same powers as Spider-Man</i>&nbsp;-- to the extent that he can hold is own against our hero in a fair fight.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CF0_1rkppmQ/WDOXOo93fpI/AAAAAAAAGPU/4JyYhQYn6zk42mWmOAWpf7TKQh5oTaBmACEw/s1600/ASM13%2B-%2BMysterio%2527s%2BSecret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CF0_1rkppmQ/WDOXOo93fpI/AAAAAAAAGPU/4JyYhQYn6zk42mWmOAWpf7TKQh5oTaBmACEw/s400/ASM13%2B-%2BMysterio%2527s%2BSecret.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mysterio’s notes about Spider-Man are quite interesting. By a sketch of Spider-Man’s mask he has written "two way mirror — cannot see in, can see out". (In a few months time, the first Spider-Man Annual will reveal that this is indeed how Spider-Man’s mask works.) When Mysterio sticks to the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, Spider-Man guesses that his boots are magnetized: an interesting hypothesis, considering that the bridge is a stone structure. In fact, Mysterio says that he uses "suction cups" to duplicate Spider-Man's wall-crawling power. It isn’t exactly clear what a "magnetic plate spring" is, but they are what enable him to duplicate Spider-Man’s leaps. Similarly, he dissolves Spider-Man’s web using "specially treated acid" whatever special treatment of an acid amounts to. The one thing, interesting, that Mysterio says he "can’t duplicate" and will have to "imitate" is Spider-Man’s webbing -- does he assume that Spider-Man's web-shooting is a natural ability?<br /><br />Spider-Man has supernatural strength (next issue, he will come a very strong second in a fight with the Incredible Hulk) but we are asked to believe that Mysterio can fight him on equal terms because -- er -- he has been trained as a stunt-man. (He "knows how to role with a punch" and can outwit Spider-Man by "tossing him over my back through a sudden move.") This obviously makes no sense at all. I think that Spider-Man must rely more heavily on his spider-sense than he lets on: so once Mysterio has worked out how to jam it (with "sonar", obviously) his fighting ability is severely curtailed.<br /><br />But if Mysterio’s impersonation of Spider-Man is sufficiently good that he can rob banks and jewelry stores with complete impunity why on earth would he walk into Jameson's office in his own identity?&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"My plan seemed perfect! I could commit all sorts of crimes, and you would get the blame! But then I got a still greater idea! I would create a separate identity for myself! And then I’d battle you!! When I defeated you, I’d be a national hero — for no-one would know that Mysterio is both the criminal and the conqueror"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Oh dear. I think Stan Lee just kind of assume that if you are a villain, your job is to fight Spider-Man, and no further explanation is really necessary.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />And that, pretty much, is the story. (Spider-Man punches out the eye-piece which contains the anti-spider-sense sonar, and the punches Mysterio and hands him over to the police.) A weird, atmospheric villain and a nice fight but the story doesn’t live up to its premise.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FvqXEdCTnxE/WDSutyYs-XI/AAAAAAAAGPw/50ekGCCGd1wDp5tON6-yVJT0tflnQvEwgCLcB/s1600/Picture%2B5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FvqXEdCTnxE/WDSutyYs-XI/AAAAAAAAGPw/50ekGCCGd1wDp5tON6-yVJT0tflnQvEwgCLcB/s1600/Picture%2B5.png" /></a></div>Just one more thing.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the fake Spider-Man is out criming, Peter Parker concludes that he must be going mad — and goes to a psychiatrist. Stan Lee is very proud of this, promoting it on the cover as one of the issues main selling points — but nothing comes of it. A <i>psychiatrist</i>&nbsp;might have been able to deal with a sleep-walking problem by prescribing medication but Spider-Man has actually gone to a <i>psychoanalyst </i>who wants Spider-Man to lie on the coach and say anything which comes into his head classic Freudian free-association. Spider-Man sensibly realizes that he’s in danger of blabbing his secret identity, and swings off. The whole incident is over in four panels.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wouldn’t it have been far more interesting if this subplot had been developed instead of the fight? If the psychiatrist had told Spider-Man that he was indeed turning into a sleep walking criminal; if getting Spider-Man onto the couch and discovering his secret identity was the whole point of the fake Spider-Man robbery spree...<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is precisely the plot of Amazing Spider-Man #24, Spider-Man Goes Mad. A psychiatrist uses a variety of tricks and illusions to convince Spider-Man that he is going mad and very nearly learns his secret identity. The fake psychiatrist is eventually revealed to be none other than....Mysterio.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is it possible that Ditko’s idea for the first Mysterio story was that the fake Spider-Man gambit would drive our hero into the arms of a fake psychiatrist — that Stan Lee vetoed that plot and replaced it with a Big Fight — and that Ditko told his own, more interesting, but less iconic version of the story a year later?<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkyOukRNzcc/V0LOiDE-srI/AAAAAAAAFyc/zduCPPxwUToUtPLLAO-57ZIRmGj5WI6XQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkyOukRNzcc/V0LOiDE-srI/AAAAAAAAFyc/zduCPPxwUToUtPLLAO-57ZIRmGj5WI6XQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Don't bother supporting me on Patreon. I'd only be embarrassed.</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img alt="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone" border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></span></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/the-amazing-spider-man-13_19.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-6506955096770875506Wed, 16 Nov 2016 10:08:00 +00002016-11-28T01:51:59.641+00:00politicsPOLITICS.First, we warned you about the Daily Mail, but you didn’t listen, because the Daily Mail is only a silly scandal sheet<br /><br />Then, we warned you about the Daily Express, but you didn’t listen, because the Daily Express is barely even a newspaper nowadays.<br /><br />Then we warned you about the Sun, but you didn’t listen, because it’s quite snobbish to moan about a working class paper. <br /><br />We warned you about the myth of political correctness, but you didn’t listen because ha-ha it’s the sort of thing that people like us have a bee in our bonnet about. <br /><br />We warned you about Katie Hopkins, but you didn’t listen, because the Apprentice is only a silly reality TV show and she obviously doesn’t believe a word of it. <br /><br />We warned you about Melanie Phillips, but you didn’t listen, because she was obviously mental. <br /><br />We warned you that that Anders Breivik used the “writings” of Melanie Phillips to justify murder, but you didn’t listen, because it’s not a journalists fault if a criminal borrows their words. <br /><br />We warned you about Gamergate, and you didn’t listen because it was only some little boys throwing their toys out of the pram over computer games.<br /><br />We warned you about the Sad Puppies, and you didn’t listen, because if this stuff bothers us so much we should damn well stay off twitter. <br /><br />Then a fascist became president of the USA, and you all said "Why didn't anyone warn us?"http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/first-we-warned-you-about-daily-mail.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-7749354275016552831Sun, 13 Nov 2016 11:55:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.085+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MAN1973: A Spider-OdysseyPart 1: Week ending March 17, 1973<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/um2RmxWst54" width="560"></iframe><br /><div><br /></div>Part 2: Spider-Man Comics Weekly #5<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kEym_6Ez0Jo" width="560"></iframe><br /><div><br /></div><br />Part 3: The Amazing Spider-Man #13<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c6CXvtrrQPo" width="560"></iframe><br /><div><br /></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/1973-spider-odyssey.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-7113561637533389311Sat, 12 Nov 2016 21:26:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.075+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #13<i><b><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">A Video Essay</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">3: The Menace of Mysterio</span></b></i><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c6CXvtrrQPo" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Are you enjoying the Spider-Project?</a><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">If so. please support me on Patreon: the idea is that you pledge to pay me $1.26 (or some other amount) each time I write an essay. That would generally be $5.04 per month; but you can set any upper limit you like.</a><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Backers occasionally get little freebies from me, like exclusive access to "Autoexegesis", a critical essay on my work written by one of my biggest admirers; and "Hums of Innocence", my pamphlet on children's ficiton.&nbsp;</a><br /><br /><br />http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/amazing-spider-man-13_12.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-1544237659835035937Fri, 11 Nov 2016 09:51:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:45.998+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #13<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>A Video Essay</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>2: Spider-Man Comics Weekly #5</i></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kEym_6Ez0Jo" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Please support me on Patreon, by pledging $1 per essay (up to a maximum you decide.) This weeks three videos are only being charged as one item, incidentally.&nbsp;</a>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/amazing-spider-man-13.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-670726904841099679Thu, 10 Nov 2016 10:31:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.070+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANThe Amazing Spider-Man #13<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">A Video Essay</span></i><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">1: Week Ending March 17th 1973</span></i><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/um2RmxWst54" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>If you enjoy this, please drop a dollar in my violin case.</i></span></a>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/the-amazing-spider-man-13.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-255299546805298432Tue, 08 Nov 2016 13:25:00 +00002016-11-28T01:51:59.626+00:00politicsPOLITICS.Poetry Corner<a href="https://youtu.be/wDwTfgVT1P0">To take your mind off what is happening in the world today, here is me saying one of my favourite poems out loud.</a><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDwTfgVT1P0" width="560"></iframe>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/poetry-corner.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-1297752364849989877Sat, 05 Nov 2016 22:59:00 +00002016-11-05T22:59:40.578+00:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GIAbY2FalC0/WAVCtmvLYgI/AAAAAAAAGOE/y4ZecGHl--s7bvYsKBeqK9le7bCmTBROwCPcB/s640/full%2Bcover-page001.jpg" width="460" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In December 2015, Rilstone published an essay which was so modern and so brilliant that it made absolutely no sense to anybody.<br /><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2015/12/on-monday-i-placed-two-apples-in-fruit.html"><br /></a><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2015/12/on-monday-i-placed-two-apples-in-fruit.html">on monday, I placed two apples...</a><br /><br />So controversial was it that it led to a widespread boycott of his work, and demands that the author be exiled to Siberia, or, failing that, Bollington.<br /><br />Today, a critic who loves and reveres Rilstone and his work revisits the controversy and tries to explain: what was all the fuss about. And what was Rilstone trying to say?<br /><br />Almost as shocking as the original essay, this pamphlet (48 pages, approx 20 pages of new material) is only available to Andrew's financial backers..<br /><br />To obtain the pamphlet, please go to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Patreon</a>&nbsp;and pledge at least $1 a month to Andrew's writing. This will give you immediate access to a PDF version. More generous donors will receive a physical copy of the work. Please do not leave it lying around for your wife or your servant to read.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/11/in-december-2015-rilstone-published.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-1218665167701633613Sat, 29 Oct 2016 20:48:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:45.993+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANThe Amazing Spider-Man #12<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img height="50" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Unmasked by Doctor Octopus</i></span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HnVumHcOlUs/WAkrrxBz1SI/AAAAAAAAGOY/Sq0_tSBWl7w3Ky9TtBlrVV6o2k5vgj3XwCLcB/s1600/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_12_UK_Variant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HnVumHcOlUs/WAkrrxBz1SI/AAAAAAAAGOY/Sq0_tSBWl7w3Ky9TtBlrVV6o2k5vgj3XwCLcB/s320/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_12_UK_Variant.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain:&nbsp;</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Doctor Octopus, again</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Supporting Cast:&nbsp;</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">J. Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Betty Brant, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen + a chorus of policemen, firemen, and circus animals.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Observations:</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"></span><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Peter has replaced the blue and white striped P.Js from Amazing Fantasy #15 with a red pair (which are slightly too short for him.)</span></div></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Failure to Communicate:</b> Page 6: The caption says that Octopus is at the top of a roller coaster, but the picture clearly shoes a Ferris wheel</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Peter Parker's financial situation:</b> If the comics are taking place in real time, the "One year's rent" which Peter paid in issue #2 ran out last month. He thinks J.J.J. will pay "plenty" for the pictures of Doctor Octopus. However, in issue #12 Peter and Aunt May will be bankrupt again, so I think we have to assume that Peter is being optimistic and J.J.J. doesn't pay up for the photos. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Why does J.J.J hate Spider-Man:</b> Instead of accusing him of being a criminal, or blaming him for being a vigilante, J.J.J. this time blames Spider-Man for being an "overrated crime fighter" who carelessly let Doctor Octopus go!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Spins a web, any-size:</b> Spider-Man escapes from the fire by making a "flame proof umbrella for his head" and (even more cleverly) to create web stepping stones to step on while he runs across the burning floor. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Back filling:</b> Stan Lee says that he has fooled us by giving us an unexpected happy ending. But in fact 5 of the last 6 issues have ended on upbeat notes. Because last issue ended on an absolute downer, Stan Lee repositions Spider-Man as "that comic which always has unhappy endings".</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>"I'm beginning to sound like a teenaged Billy Graham!"</b> The World Trades Fair which ran from&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">April - October 1964 in Flushing Park, (a 20 minute walk from Peter Parker's high school) included a religious movie narrated by the famous preacher.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>"Boy! That Spider-Man is a poor man's Frank Buck!"</b> Frank Buck, author of Bring 'Em Back Alive, was a legendary "collector" of wild animals for zoos and circuses.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!" screams the cover. Well, no. Imaginary Tales were always much more of a DC thing than a Marvel thing. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with a story clearly labelled as being outside of normal continuity&nbsp;—&nbsp;one in which Superman can marry Lois&nbsp;Lane, produce a brood of Superkids, or become President of American without irrevocably changing or destroying the comic. They are only perceived as hoaxes and let-downs if the nature of the story is withheld until the last page. "Captain America dreams that he meets John Henry and Paul Bunyan" is a perfectly legitimate idea for a story. "Captain America marries Sharon Carter, but on the final page, wakes up and realizes it was all a dream", not so much.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Amazing Spider-Man #12 is certainly not a dream and definitely not an imaginary tale. It is, however, arguably a hoax. &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cover is another masterpiece and for once Ditko and Lee are in agreement about the unique selling point of the issue. It's another of Ditko's iconic "crowds staring at Spider-Man" tableaux, except that this time the crowd is staring at Spider-Man having his mask torn off. So far this year, the Brain has nearly guessed Spider-Man's secret identity; Spider-Man has unmasked Electro (no-one special) and the Big Man (not who we expected). Last month, Peter Parker resolved to reveal his identity to Betty Brant, but changed his mind. So this month, almost to complete the cycle, we have Spider-Man being forcibly unmasked in front of his worst enemy. The title of the story is "Unmasked by Doctor Octopus", but Doctor Octopus is the smallest figure on the cover. It's clear from the picture that what the story is really about is "Unmasked In Front of J. Jonah Jameson!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Doctor Octopus escaped last issue, so it shouldn't come as any great surprise that he's back for a rematch. (It evidently did come as a surprise to Stan Lee, who finished last issue with Spider-Man "little dreaming of the new adventures and surprises that await him" — rather than by trailing Doc Ock's return.). It's a curious set-up: not a two part Doctor Octopus story; not even really a Doctor Octopus story and a sequel. It's more like two quite different Doctor Octopus stories, one after the other. Almost as if one creator — let's call him "Steve" — thought Doc Ock should be one of a number of players in a cops and robbers gangster story, and the other — let's call him "Stan" — thought he should be a Lex Luthor figure, brooding in jail about how he was going to get his revenge on Spider-Man if it was the last thing he did. The "Ditko" version springs gangsters out of jail in return for venture capital with which to become head of the Thieves Guild; the "Lee" version" commits crimes simply in order to attract Spider-Man's attention. "Beating Spider-Man" is now Doctor Octopus's only motivation. One might even say that he suffers from the same arachnophobia which afflicts Betty Brant and J. Jonah Jameson.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And why not? Superman needs his Moriarty, and it might as well be Octavius.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last time around, fate — or The Plot, or indeed the writer — had to work very hard to engineer a confrontation between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. This time around, Doctor Octopus has himself taken control of The Plot. He wants to fight Spider-Man because he wants to fight Spider-Man. He commits crimes in order to persuade Spider-Man to come and fight him — and he finally kidnaps Betty and tells Jameson to put out a message informing Spider-Man that he'll let her go if he'll come out and fight with him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If anyone ever asks you what Stan Lee contributed to Spider-Man, point them towards page 5 of this issue. Octopus is holding Betty Brant in one arm, J.J.J. in a second and Peter in a third…and Jameson delivers the immortal line "Don't just dangle there Parker! Tell him who I am!" "Don't just dangle there, do something" would have been a cliché, reducing Jameson to a Dick Dastardly figure — but "tell him who I am" is a perfectly judged piece of characterization. Jameson is so arrogant that he thinks his name will intimidate a super criminal. It reminds one of Citizen Kane responding to a personal attack by shouting "I'M CHARLES FOSTER KANE!"<br /><br />It's also very funny.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JnWuqlwv3yc/WAkvYXjGMYI/AAAAAAAAGOk/WqzQJGco4TUgILcWLjeSOt-WeCuSUozeACLcB/s1600/2016-10-20%2B21.35.54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JnWuqlwv3yc/WAkvYXjGMYI/AAAAAAAAGOk/WqzQJGco4TUgILcWLjeSOt-WeCuSUozeACLcB/s200/2016-10-20%2B21.35.54.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rather unhelpfully, Peter Parker shouts "Don't be afraid! Spider-Man will save you!" after Betty as Doc Ock carries her away from her office. But Betty hates Spider-Man. She kinda thinks he sorta killed her brother. She's probably more terrified that the Spider will come and rescue her than that the Octopus will harm her. Don't you remember last issue? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the first issue in which the, ahem, web of coincidences is constructed like a farce (although there were comedic elements in issue #5.) Nearly all the plot movement comes from the fact that Jameson and Betty, and Doctor Octopus, and indeed Aunt May and Flash Thompson all know Peter Parker and Spider-Man but believe them to be two different people. The first big wrinkle comes on page 5: Doctor Octopus kidnaps Betty, says that she will be set free if Spider-Man comes to Coney Island alone, adding that Jameson may send one photographer. Immediately, in the same panel, Jameson says "I'll send you, Parker!" Just in case we missed the point, Peter thinks "How can I go as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker?" This is, of course, the solution to the conundrum set on the cover: Parker goes to face Doctor Octopus as Spider-Man, and when he pulls his mask off everyone — the villain, Jameson, Betty and the cops take it for granted that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are two different people — that Parker dressed up as Spider-Man to get a photo. Even better, because he is suffering from a viral infection ("the one thing even (my) spider-strength can't resist!") he has temporarily lost his power.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />"It isn't Spider-Man! It's that weakling brat, Peter Parker!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Peter!! Oh, he did it for me!! Oh he might have been killed!" </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The fool! I ordered him to take pictures of Octopus— not try to be a hero!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_Lu4D7DTXg/WAksDg9hqzI/AAAAAAAAGOg/kKY0aRPKySUBmOkcyCtOHvNVDoicIO6lQCLcB/s1600/peter-unmasked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_Lu4D7DTXg/WAksDg9hqzI/AAAAAAAAGOg/kKY0aRPKySUBmOkcyCtOHvNVDoicIO6lQCLcB/s400/peter-unmasked.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So what we have her is indeed, not a dream, not an imaginary story — but something more like a shaggy dog story. Doctor Octopus does indeed unmask Spider-Man but everyone takes it for granted that Peter can't be Spider-Man and must be an impostor. It is so perfectly set up — and most readers must work out what is going to happen several frames before we get there — that no-one feels cheated or short-changed. It's a great punch line.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The big unmasking scene happens on page 8; the murder of Bennet Brant happened on page 13 last issue. In both cases there is a sense that the story has peaked too early; that the promise and question of the cover has been answered, and the rest of the episode has to be padded out with a fight scene. One wonders whether, in both cases, Lee dreamed up the premise. ("What if Dr Ock ripped Spider-Man's mask off?") leaving Ditko to spin it out to 21 pages? There is a definite sense that Ditko himself was clutching at straws: first showing Doc Ock, er, releasing all the animals from the zoo, leading to scenes of Spider-Man fighting a gorilla on a flagpole and catching a lion between his legs; and then giving us a prolonged fight in, er, a deserted artists studio, full of gigantic stone angels and 12 foot high faces which catch fire for no particular reason. ("We knocked over the sculptor's cleaning fluid! It's starting a fire!") This allows Spider-Man to demonstrate that he's a proper hero — risking his life to save his enemy when he gets trapped under a statue — and for Doctor Octopus to show that he's a sore loser ("Spider-Man didn't beat me! It was the fire!") And it's a good enough fight scene. But it feels anti-climactic after the set up and resolution of the unmasking.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man has spent the last couple of issues being brave and noble; but in the final three frames, Peter Parker goes out of his way to remind us that he is still a total jerk. Bravado which is quite attractive from Spider-Man when he is putting his life on the line ("If all that boasting doesn't tire you out, nothing will!") is deeply unattractive and priggish when Peter uses it on Flash in the school playground. Since their fight, Flash Thompson has, in his awkward, locker-room way, been trying to reach out to Peter Parker. Liz, impressed at his bravery, and obviously trying to make amends for being cruel to him in the past, invites him to a party. Peter rudely turns her down, inventing a fictitious date with Betty Brant. He refers to the confident, successful career-woman who has just been through an utterly terrifying experience as "a certain little brunette" and implies he can take her on dates without asking her first. He goes on to call Flash far worse names than Flash ever called him. ("I know how boring it must be to have to use all those one syllable words when you talk to him! You deserve each other!") And finally — unbelievably — after a week which has seen his wonderful friend Betty tragically bereaved and terrifyingly kidnapped he announces that "things are finally looking up for my favourite couple of guys—namely, me!" This is clearly the voice of the Peter Parker who told the policeman that he was going to look out for number one from now on.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I fear that no irony is intended. Stan Lee is telling us that being priggish and rude to the Flash Thompsons and Liz Allens of this world is an appropriate way for us geeks to behave. Being rude to them when they try to be nice to you counts as a happy ending. Because us nerdy comic book readers are <i>better</i> than football players, and should never forget it.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It wasn't a good lesson for Spider-Man fans to pick up from the comic, but pick it up many of us did.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Support this blog on Patreon!&nbsp;</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/the-amazing-spider-man-12.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-3256046257158755278Sat, 22 Oct 2016 12:28:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.014+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANThe Amazing Spider-Man #11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: xx-large;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img height="50" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" width="200" /></a></i><br /><i style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></i> <i style="font-size: xx-large;">Turning Point, Featuring the Return of Dr. Octopus!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AJfUVRggCHE/V_a0MxDtHrI/AAAAAAAAGM4/IrSats5fNboqApI-RHNOjj4iLBmsiy3WQCK4B/s1600/011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AJfUVRggCHE/V_a0MxDtHrI/AAAAAAAAGM4/IrSats5fNboqApI-RHNOjj4iLBmsiy3WQCK4B/s400/011.jpg" width="262" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain:</b></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; text-align: justify;">Doctor Octopus</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Supporting Cast:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Betty Brant, Bennet Brant, Blackie Gaxton, Aunt May, <br />+ a Prison Governor and a chorus of crooks and cops.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>First appearance:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Spider-Man’s Spider-Tracers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Observations:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">This is only the second issue which J. Jonah Jameson has not appeared in.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Most of the story, which is about Betty trying to help her brother, takes place in Philedelphia, “the city of brotherly love”.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Spins a web, any size:</b> Web is used to block a doorway, blackout a searchlight, and as a bandage for a sprained ankle.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Marvel Time:</b> Doctor Octopus has served 9 months in jail. His original sentence must have been around 310 days.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Failure to communicate:</b> On page 6, Bennet visits his client “in jail”, and Blackie talks about being sprung “from jail”. But on page 9, Spider-Man soliloquizes that “Octopus is sure to try to spring Blackie while he’s still a prisoner in the courthouse. If he waits til they take him to the state pen, it will be a much tougher job.” In fact, the building is clearly shown as a castle-like prison with many barred windows. Lee spots that it Doc Ock gets Blackie out far too easily, but his retro-fit doesn’t match the illustrations.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medieval moralists said that Fortune was like a huge wheel. As long as you were going up, you were fine: but once you reached the top, there was nowhere to go but down. Aristotle said that tragedy involved one particular moment when everything appeared to be going great for the hero and suddenly everything started to go wrong. This catastrophic change was known as a &nbsp;<i>perepiteia </i>: a turning point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Amazing Spider-Man #11 is not so much a turning point as a staying the same forever point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59Lq5aED0rg/V_a0XpagSDI/AAAAAAAAGNA/1Ei44JIw08Mvjw_egkCsOOVzBL4VuURQACK4B/s1600/e07e995a53ae8609b53850cb0074d916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59Lq5aED0rg/V_a0XpagSDI/AAAAAAAAGNA/1Ei44JIw08Mvjw_egkCsOOVzBL4VuURQACK4B/s400/e07e995a53ae8609b53850cb0074d916.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As usual, The Writer and The Artist can’t quite agree on what the Selling Point of the issue should be. The cover shows us a rather stiff Dr Octopus fighting an equally un-dynamic Spider-Man, with the words "The Return of Doctor Octopus" in big white-on-red letters. But there’s a fifty word caption — I would guess the longest that has ever appeared on a cover — asking "What happens when Spider-Man decides to reveal his identity to someone else?" The interior splash page answers the question — rather daringly — by taking us right to the end of the story, and posing a new question: "How did it happen, and why?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is really not a bad compromise, and it is going to stay in place for most of the year. The covers &nbsp;—&nbsp;the outward facing images —&nbsp;will show Spider-Man confronting a villain,&nbsp;with&nbsp;Stan Lee congratulating himself on dreaming up such a impressive adversary. ("We’ve created the greatest villain of all for ol’Spidey!" "Wow just wait til you see the Green Goblin!" "So you think there are no new types of villain for ol’Spidey to battle, eh?"). The internal splash page — directed at people who have, after all, already bought the comic — will promote the actual storyline, asking a question like "has Spider-Man really turned to crime?" (no) "has Spider-Man really gone mad?" (no) or &nbsp;"has Spider-Man really lost his powers?" (no).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Or, this time: "Why has Betty decided that, like her boss, she hates Spider-Man. For ever and ever?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It doesn’t seem likely that either Lee or Ditko ever planned out a plot arc in advance. Background characters are fleshed out and become major supporting players, changes of direction are back-filled by Stan Lee. When Lee introduced nasty Mr Jameson in issue #1, he didn’t know he was going to become more-or-less the co-star of the comic, and certainly didn’t know that Spider-Man was going to fall in love with his secretary. But it was a canny move. Peter might have carried on dreaming about Liz and having fights with Flash over her: but that would have been obvious and boring. The idea that he has a close romantic friendship with a slightly older career gal is much less predictable and far more interesting.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Amazing Spider-Man #2, J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary briefly appears, but we don’t find out her name. Issue #4 marks the first appearance of "Miss Brant". In issue #5, Miss Brant tactfully tells her boss that he is too obsessed with Spider-Man and <i>at that precise moment</i> Peter Parker notices how pretty she is. Stan back fills the story, giving the impression that Peter Parker and <i>Betty</i> Brant have know each other for some time ("I never realized how pretty Betty Brant was!" "I never realized how I felt about her!”) In fact, they have barely exchanged twenty words. In issue #6 Peter tries to ask her out but is interrupted by J.J.J. Finally, in issue # 7, the two of them end up flirting behind Jameson’s desk after Spider-Man and the Vulture have trashed the office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Their relationship isn’t classic romance comic fodder. Betty really gets on with Peter and Peter really gets on with her. We never see them on a date; but we do see them sitting together in the dark while Aunt May is having major surgery. "Maybe I haven't got many friends!" says Peter "But one wonderful one like Betty makes up for all I haven't got!" It’s one of the most believable relationships in comic books.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">People married young in those days — so aren’t we running headlong towards a obvious conclusion: fire burning in the hearth and spider-babies on the rug? When Stan Lee thought he was writing a realistic convention-breaking graphic novel, that might have happened. But that idea is long buried. Spider-Man is a super-hero with a secret identity and a utility belt and an arch enemy. His comic now has a clear formula — a brilliant formula, a formula that allows for endless elaborations, but a formula nonetheless. There will always be a new villain, Aunt May will always be at death's door. Peter will always be dropping into the Bugle and Betty will always be waiting for him there. If he unmasks, gets married, leaves home — even, god forbid, gets a proper job or gets drafted into the army — Amazing Spider-Man as we know it comes to an end.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So something has to happen to make it impossible for Spider-Man to unmask: to freeze &nbsp;Peter and Betty in a permanent impasse. Turning Point is an obligatory piece of plot machinery. At some point in the future, Flash Thompson is going to have to find out who Spider-Man really is: but that moment can be infinitely delayed. But the longer Peter goes without telling Betty the truth, the worse a cad he appears to be. When he thinks (in issue #7) "Betty can’t care for me if she won’t confide in me!" he comes across as a shocking hypocrite.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In issue #9, Betty is upset because Peter goes to photograph the prison riot after she had asked him not to. She speaks calmly to Peter and tries to explain her feelings. "Peter, I never told you why I left high school last year and took a job! I never told you about someone I once knew — &nbsp;who reminded me of you! But I don’t want to be hurt again!" Peter responds angrily "I get the message! I’m not Mr Perfect!" But a page later he is claiming that it was how Betty who "flared up" at him, and Betty is the one doing the apologizing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In issue #10, Betty is bullied by the Enforcers. Although she tells Peter that it is a case of mistaken identity, she confides to the reader that she has "foolishly borrowed money to a loan shark!" &nbsp;It can’t have been very much — she has paid off the principal on her secretarial wage — but the Big Man has doubled the interest. She decides to leave town, because she doesn’t want Peter to know how silly she has been and certainly doesn’t want him to risk his life protecting her from the Thieve's Guild.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two different secrets have been foreshadowed. A mysterious person in Betty’s past, strongly implied to be dead, who is somewhat like Peter and who worked in some dangerous occupation; and a foolish attempt to borrow money at high interest rates. If Steve knows where he is going with this, he doesn’t tell Stan, who trails issue #11 as "Spider-Man discovers the strange secret of Betty Brant…!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's not particularly strange. It seems that Betty's brother, Bennet Brant, is a lawyer who is either working for the mob, or has run up a huge gambling debt, or both. A gangster named Blackie Glaxon has agreed to cancel the debt if he, Bennet, springs him, Blackie, from prison, which Bennet facilitates by, er, arranging for Betty to drive Doctor Octopus from New York to Philadelphia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Up to now, it has always been fairly plausible chains of events which have caused the two halves of Peter’s world to come crashing together: a science demonstration going wrong at his school; a criminal robbing his place of work. Betty’s involvement with the Enforcers was already a step too far, but this crosses a line. I could suspend my disbelief in a schoolboy who clings to walls and fights giant talking lizards; but when Spider-Man spotted Betty driving Doctor Octopus’s car I found myself thinking "No, I just can’t accept that."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lMCkUukFJYI/V_a0lb5YpPI/AAAAAAAAGNI/DGoBef5O4zoRrXSrw0cEzGjDg3h8IIglgCK4B/s400/ASM11%2B-%2BDoc%2BThreatens%2BBetty.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why is Betty driving the car, anyway? Even granted that crazy scientists with metal arms are the only people who can break through prison bars (and I can't help thinking an acetylene torch would have done the job just as well); why do you need to incriminate your sister to get him there? Doc Ock is a free man. He could have caught the bus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is possible to square "I gave Bennet all the money I had so that he could pay his debts to Blackie" with "I borrowed money from a shark". It is quite hard to square "I ran away to Philadelphia because I didn't want Peter to get involved with the Enforcers" with "I ran away to Philadelphia because I didn't want Peter to know I have a dishonest brother". But it's much harder to square "I don’t want you to be a photographer because I once had a friend who enjoyed danger" with "I don’t want you to be a photographer because I am still at this moment trying to help my crooked brother.” And very hard indeed to think that a gal would ever refer to her brother as "someone I once knew".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Very conveniently, Betty drops a map of Philadelphia as she is getting into the car, so Spider-Man knows roughly where she is going. Even more conveniently, he has just invented a wonderful new plot device: a "detailed model of a live spider" which &nbsp;"sends coded messages" which he can "pick up with a small portable receiver." This is, of course, the prototype spider-tracer. The next time it appears it will be an "electrically treated spider-pin". It’s actually fairly pointless. If Spider-Man had simply followed Betty to Philly, swung around the city for a few panels, and then spotted her, I don’t think anyone would have complained. It’s the sort of coincidence which happens a lot: Spider-Man always swings past the exact person he most needs to find. And the new electronic spider-plot device is still coincidence-powered. The second time Spider-Man needs to track down Betty he remarks "A good job they used the car which had my gizmo on it!" Yes. A good job indeed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Doc Ock springs Blackie from jail, but Blackie breaks his promise to Bennet and ends up taking him and Betty hostages, and Spider-Man comes along and there’s a big gun fight, and…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Somewhere, buried deeply in Peter Parker — so deeply that he never mentions it or thinks about it — is an overwhelming guilt that he caused the death of his beloved Uncle because he did not act. But today, Betty Brant’s beloved brother dies because Spider-Man did act. (I have often wondered if Bennet's friends called him "Ben" as well.) He dies "like a man" trying to protect his sister, but if Spider-Man had not been there, he might very well have survived. Betty’s initial reaction mirrors Peter’s reaction in Amazing Fantasy #15: "(He) is dead..because of Spider-Man!” (Spider-Man tells Gaxon "There’s no place on earth you can hide from me!" which is exactly what he said to the uncle-slaying burglar.)<br /><br />Stan Lee piles the irony on as only he can "I hate you Spider-Man .. If only Peter were here!" cries Betty. Oh what a tangled web we weave...! When Betty has calmed down, she modifies her accusation, instead damning Spider-Man with the most terrible kind of faint praise. "It wasn’t his fault! He was trying to help us!". And she replaces her hatred of Spider-Man with something worse: an irrational revulsion. The girl who didn’t want Peter Parker to take photos because it reminded her that her brother had a gambling debt (or something) announces "I still never want to see Spider-Man again! I couldn’t bear being reminded…of Bennet!" Her hatred of Spider-Man is irrational. Like J. Jonah Jameson, she is an arachnophobe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Guilt is not a helpful emotion. If you act, sometimes, good people may die. If you do not act, sometimes, good people may also die. It’s an unjust world and virtue is victorious only in theatrical performances. But Peter Parker will increasingly come to feel that the deck is stacked and the universe hates him personally.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--fQ5yrapk3w/V_a1hSj07HI/AAAAAAAAGNU/JVzw8z2OJD4cs4sX4xC-0qr77_ZbUM1XgCK4B/s1600/amazing-spider-man-11-pagina-22.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="309" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--fQ5yrapk3w/V_a1hSj07HI/AAAAAAAAGNU/JVzw8z2OJD4cs4sX4xC-0qr77_ZbUM1XgCK4B/s320/amazing-spider-man-11-pagina-22.jpg" width="320" /></a>&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The final three panels are as good as anything Ditko ever drew and (once again) as good as anything Lee ever wrote. Note the big candle in the foreground: is the scene taking place in a funeral home, or at a wake? Peter can’t now tell Betty who he is, and he is trapped in another lie, albeit a very white one. “Of course I understand! And I’m sure Spider-Man would too, if he knew!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If he knew. Peter Parker destroys his relationship with Betty Brant there and then and he must know that is what he is doing. Can you imagine, four or five years hence, Spider-Man unmasking to the girl he loves and her saying "You stood there — hours after my brother had been shot — literally over his dead body — and you <i>lied </i>to me?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One month and three panels later, Betty will be back in New York; working for Mr. Jameson again. She has a new haircut — which covers up her ear-rings — a new style of clothes (rather stylish purple) and a new handbag. She’s lost her whacky eyebrows. But this is the end for Betty Brant as a character. The new Betty is little more than a girl-shaped golden snitch for Doctor Octopus to bait his spider-trap with.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The final frame of the comic has a tiny figure of Peter Parker walking away from us. It’s an image we’ve seen several times before. But instead of the the split face motif, a giant figure of Spider-Man is walking in front of Peter Parker. I am sure this panel must have suggested the iconic Spider-Man #50 cover to John Romita.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody></tbody></table>It makes me wonder. Did Steve Ditko originally envisage entirely different words in those speech bubbles? Was Peter Parker originally going to say, not "I understand why you hate Spider-Man" but "I understand why you are staying in Philadelphia". So the <i>perepiteia</i> would have been Betty leaving the story altogether, clearing the way for a relationship with Liz Allen (who becomes unexpectedly a Peter Parker fan in the very next episode.) &nbsp;But Lee overruled him, leaving Betty as a lose cog in the story engine, a relic of a previous story-line, a dangling plot threat which can never be tied up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Later continuity reveals that Bennet Brant did not die from the gunshot, but survived to become the Crime Master. Later continuity can fuck off.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">If you have enjoyed this essay and want to support the Spider-Man project, please pledge $1 or more each month...</a></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/the-amazing-spider-man-11_21.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-5171654125853869465Sat, 15 Oct 2016 22:35:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.034+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #10 (II)<a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Why does J. Jonah Jameson hate Spider-Man?</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EcWid4OPZDQ/V_P0bsiH3KI/AAAAAAAAGMI/61dtBZmfkmAV34BlzdzEf70eTsZGLWzZgCLcB/s1600/asm010_pg22_detail_top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EcWid4OPZDQ/V_P0bsiH3KI/AAAAAAAAGMI/61dtBZmfkmAV34BlzdzEf70eTsZGLWzZgCLcB/s400/asm010_pg22_detail_top.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car accident.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She had been by far the most high profile celebrity of the 1980s, and had she lived, might still have become titular queen of England. Attractive and well-meaning, she had been arbitrarily selected as a symbol of female beauty and British patriotism, a role which engulfed her until she seemed to believe in it herself. Pretty much her only public function was to be photographed at public events; yet she came to regard photographers as her implacable enemies. An inquest eventually decided that she had been unlawfully killed by those photographers. The media obsession with her has never really died down.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At her funeral her brother delivered an astonishing eulogy in front of what is still the highest UK TV audience of all time. Why, he asked, did the press and the paparazzi pursue his sister so relentlessly? What explanation could there possibly be for the fact that professional photographers wanted to take photographs of the most glamourous woman of her age?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don’t think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media; why there seemed to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the spectrum.&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is an absolutely fascinating remark. Earl Spencer believes that his sister was “genuinely good” and that press photographers were the opposite – genuinely evil. And he thinks that genuinely evil people want to destroy – "bring down" – genuinely good ones. Not for any reason. Destroying goodies is just what baddies do.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And the way they do it is by printing photos of them in the newspaper.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for ditko betty brant betty brant" src="http://images.sequart.org/images/phony.png" height="394" width="400" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the end of Amazing Spider-Man #10, after Foswell has been unmasked as the Big Man, J. Jonah Jameson speaks directly to the reader, and reveals for the first time why he hates Spider-Man so much.<br /><br /><i>"Heaven help me,"</i> he says <i>"I'm jealous of him."</i><br /><br />In Amazing Spider-Man #5 Betty Brant confronted her boss about his obsession with the superhero using the fine old journalistic technique of telling him what "some people might say".&nbsp;</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“Some of our readers are starting to think that you are jealous of him.”&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jameson admits that his motives are entirely cynical <i>“I have only ONE real motive - to make money. The more I attack Spider-Man, the more people read my papers….Spider-Man sells papers, understand?”&nbsp;</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Would it be too much to imagine that he has been pondering Betty’s words deeply in his heart for the last six months? Some people might think I was jealous. Some people might think I was jealous. And that, after making a complete idiot of himself two months running (accusing Spider-Man of being Electro, and then accusing him of being the Big Man) he suddenly has a moment of self-knowledge. Betty with the dangly ear-rings and the silly hair-cut has hit the nail precisely on the head.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-style: italic;">“Heaven help me. I </i>am<i style="font-style: italic;"> jealous of him!”</i><br /><br />J.J.J. must really value Betty as a P.A, incidentally: he wouldn't put up with even indirect criticism from anyone else.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We all talk about Stan Lee’s print persona, the fake hipster voice, the self deprecating irony, the hype, the endless insertion of himself into the narrative. But his dialogue is so damn good that we almost forget it exists. Peter Parker says something in Peter Parker’s voice and Flash Thompson snaps back in Flash Thompson’s voice and we almost forget that Stan Lee put those words into their mouths as well.<br /><br />Jonah’s soliloquy is a little masterpiece.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>"Am I always to be thwarted, embarrassed, frustrated by Spider-Man?"</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jameson made up the idea that Spider-Man was Electro, and feels embarrassed because he was exposed as a liar. &nbsp;Jameson made up the idea that Spider-Man was the Big Man, and feels embarrassed because he was exposed as a liar. Yet somehow, he thinks his repeated public humiliations are Spider-Man's fault. Jameson hates Spider-Man because he thwarts and embarrasses him; but if he'd quit hating him there would be nothing for him to be thwarted and embarrassed about.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“I hate that costumed freak more than I’ve ever hated anyone before!”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The “costumed freak” bit is a major problem: he doesn’t hate Daredevil or Captain America, and before long he’ll be making alliances with the freakishly costumed Scorpion and the equally freakishly costumed Mysterio to destroy Spider-Man.&nbsp;</div><br /><i></i> <i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“I’ll never be contented while he’s free!”&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As long as Jameson thinks in terms of locking Spider-Man up, his hatred has a veneer of justice. He can see that Spider-Man is a crook, even if no-one else can, and if he could get him arrested, he'd be doing the world a favour. But isn't one of the things he blames Spider-Man for taking the law into his own hands?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“All my life I’ve been interested in only one thing — making money!”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When J.J.J. told Betty he was only interested in making money, he was boasting&nbsp;–&nbsp;at the very least,&nbsp;admitting a manly flaw. He's a businessman. The bottom line is more important than the truth. When Jameson orders Foswell to print obvious lies about Spider-Man, Foswell reflects this line back at him. <i>“I’ll do it. I’ve gotten into the habit of eating three squares a day.”&nbsp;</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Money isn't really the only thing which Jameson is interested in, incidentally: he cares about his family, his personal reputation, the other members of his club, and very probably his supply of good cigars.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“And yet Spider-Man risks his life day after day, with no thought of reward!”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jameson is entirely wrong here. Peter Parker may not be quite the dickhead we met back in issue #1, but he is not purely altruistic. He care about fame; his whole life is a performance. And he thinks about his reward all the bloody time.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><ul><li><i>“Luckily I had the automatic shutter of my camera working, so old tight-wad Jameson paid me a bundle for the pix!”</i></li><li><i><i>“I’ve got to raise some money fast! I’ll scout the city until I find some sort of crime that I can photograph, then I’ll sell it to Jameson for as much as he’ll pay!”</i></i></li><li><i><i>“What a fool I am! There’s a reward for Electro’s capture! If I can nab him, I won’t have to beg the money from anyone!”&nbsp;</i></i></li><li><i><i>“I’ll snap a few pix of the burning building, old skinflint Jameson may be willing to pay Pete Parker for them!”</i></i></li><li><i>“What a picture this will make! Jameson will pay me a fortune!”</i></li></ul></div><i></i> <i> </i> <br /><i> </i></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man is no longer the young man who only cares about Number One. He goes into action for many reasons: to pay his family's medical bills; to help people he personally cares about, like Betty; because he's found himself in a situation where he can help and no-one else can. And he does have a sense that preventing property crime contributes to the public good. But he doesn't yet think of himself as having a professional obligation to catch bad guys.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jameson doesn't know any of this. Jameson hates Spider-Man's public image. Jameson hates Spider-Man for fighting crime without any reward, never knowing that he, personally, is the one who rewards him.&nbsp;</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“If a man like him is good — is a hero — then what am I?”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Does Jameson sincerely believe Spider-Man is a criminal (even though it is obviously not true) because the alternative is to believe that he, Jameson, is a bad guy? People can and do engage in doublethink of this kind, altering the facts to fit their views. Newspaper men are particularly vulnerable to this kind of cognitive dissonance. It is possible to believe so strongly that the E.U. has banned Christmas that you literally cannot see the giant neon baby Jesus in the high street.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“I can never respect myself while he lives!”&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">A minute ago the only thing that would make him happy was sending Spider-Man to jail. Now the only thing that will restore self-respect is actually killing him. But if you feel bad about yourself because you are a selfish businessman, why on earth would you feel better about being a murderer?<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“Spider-Man represents everything that I’m not! He’s brave, powerful and unselfish!”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hold your horses. Spider-Man is certainly brave; although we have no particular reason to think that Jameson is a coward. Jameson <i>believes</i>&nbsp;Spider-Man to be unselfish, although a lot of the time, he's mistaken. But how can J.J.J. possibly think that Spider-Man is powerful and he is weak? J. Jonah Jameson is the person who can wind public opinion round his little finger. J. Jonah Jameson is the one who gets visits from all the most important people. J. Jonah Jameson is the one with a huge workforce he can hire and fire at will. J. Jonah Jameson orders bankers to attend to his account after hours. Spider-Man can’t even cash a cheque. There is a warrant for Spider-Man’s arrest, because Jameson campaigned for there to be one. Spider-Man can’t appear in public, because Jameson has turned public opinion against him. Spider-Man has to beg and plead and compromise his moral principles in order to get life saving medical care for his loved ones; Jameson, is, presumably, insured up to the hilt.&nbsp;</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man certainly has one thing which Jameson does not have: physical strength. Is it possible that Jameson seeks power and wealth because he believes himself to physically puny? (It will be remembered that Charles Foster Kane's sought power and wealth as a substitute for motherly love.) Or perhaps, when Jameson says that Spider-Man has great power at some deeper level he understands that with great power must also come… something else.&nbsp;</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“The truth is, I envy him! I J. Jonah Jameson — millionaire, man of the world, civic leader — I’d give anything to be the man that he is!"</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What do we think about heroes and gods and stars and celebrities? Do we try to live our lives on a higher level because we want to be like Jesus or Princess Di or Spider-Man? Or do we give up and stop trying altogether because whatever happens we will never be as great as Jesus or Princess Di or Spider-Man? Would Jonah really give anything (anything?) to be Spider-Man? Then why doesn't he?</div><br /><i></i> <i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>"I can never climb to his level!"&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Can’t you Jonah? Can't you really?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The difference between you and Spider-Man is not that he can climb walls and you cannot. The difference between you and Spider-Man is not how much power you have. The difference between you and Spider-Man is about how you have chosen to <i>use</i> your power. Why not use your vast wealth to start the J. Jonah Jameson foundation for the victims of crime? Why not use your paper to campaign against slum landlords and drug-money launderers? Why not pay for bullet proof jackets for cops? Why not take a sabbatical and become a human rights lawyer?<br /><br />If you could change one thing about yourself, why haven't you?</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i style="text-align: justify;"><i>“So all that remains is — for me to try to tear him down!"</i></i><i></i><br /><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stan Lee is trying hard to rationalize Jameson's hatred. But in the end, he can't get much beyond what the bitter Earl Spencer said about the photographers who killed his beloved sister. Spider-Man is good. Jameson is not good. Bad people will always try to bring down good people.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"...because, heaven help me — I’m jealous of him.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jealousy is an irrational emotion. A writer who is very nearly as famous as Stan Lee once said that there was no reason for it:&nbsp;</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>"They are not ever jealous for the cause.&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>But jealous that they are jealous.&nbsp;</i></i></div><i> </i><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>It is a monster, begot upon itself, born of itself…”&nbsp;</i></i></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If Stan Lee had been leafing through the Bard for inspiration he might also have lighted on an aside in the same play. The evil Iago is plotting to kill the harmless Cassio. His explanation brings us about as close to J.J.J's mindset as we can come.&nbsp;</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><i>“He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.”</i></i></div><i> </i> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bad people hate good people because good people make bad people look bad. And that's that.<br /><br />If you are terrified of traveling by plane then no amount of evidence that plane accidents are infinitesimally rare is likely to overcome that fear. You’re not scared for any reason: you’re just scared. It’s why we’ve coined words like "Islamaphobia" and "Homophobia". Boring people may say “ha ha it really means fear of things being the same” or “ha ha Islam is not a race”, but most of us see the point. The belief that children shouldn’t go into a swimming pool that has had homosexuals in it in case they catch gay, and the belief that you can cure Islam by throwing sausages at it don’t really count as opinions. They are irrational fears; like being afraid of mice. Or elevators. Or walking under ladders. Or...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And that’s the third reason why Spider-Man couldn’t have been Fly-Man or Mosquito-Man. J. Jonah Jameson – &nbsp;and also Aunt May and Betty Brant and many of the people in Ditko’s man-in-the-street tableux – has a wholly unjustified fear of Spider-Man. A phobia.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What was it Martin Goodman said when Stan Lee told him his idea for a new superhero character?&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">People. Don’t. Like. Spiders.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So that’s what the comic is all about. Snap!<br /><br />*<br /><br />Later continuity has revealed that Jameson had an alcoholic father who beat him.<br /><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img height="199" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /><br /><br />If you have enjoyed this essay please support me on Patreon...<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/amazing-spider-man-10-ii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-6838852892377692209Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:33:00 +00002016-10-17T12:08:22.803+01:00<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RVKTx9YlKls" width="560"></iframe></span></span><br /><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">"What are your songs about?"</div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">"Some of them are about four minutes, some are about five minutes and some, believe it or not are about eleven or twelve minutes."&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2010/09/12-return-iii.html">Rilstone on Visions of Joanna</a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2011/09/through-looking-glass-1.html">Rilstone on Ballad in Plain D</a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="http://folkbuddies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/tempest.html">Rilstone on Tempest</a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2011/10/ill-know-my-song-well-before-i-start.html">Rilstone on the Neverending Tour</a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">Buy My Book:</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/andrew-rilstone/george-and-joe-and-jack-and-bob-and-me/paperback/product-20157374.html?ppn=1">George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me)</a></div><div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M7FKyouUIsQ" width="560"></iframe></span></span></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br /></div></div><div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 6px;"><br /></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/what-are-your-songs-about-some-of-them.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-3130608746065415670Thu, 13 Oct 2016 00:36:00 +00002016-10-13T01:36:02.643+01:00Not even slightly bitter about not getting Glastonbury Tickets this year<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5QCyY8EUTkg" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMGrXCLToIE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xBhYD6d5E8k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/not-even-slightly-bitter-about-not.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-1854084902893310601Wed, 12 Oct 2016 21:43:00 +00002016-10-12T22:43:27.669+01:00Remember: Patreon pays me in dollars, so there has never been a better time to support my writing.<br /><br />And tonmorrow will be even better! Roll on, sterling / dollar parity!<br /><br /><br />http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/remember-patreon-pays-me-in-dollars-so.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-3905253805413348817Sat, 08 Oct 2016 21:07:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.021+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #10<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="50" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div><div lang="zxx"><br /></div><div lang="zxx"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>The Enforcers&nbsp;</b></i></span></div><div lang="zxx"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div lang="zxx"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i31QdDqNCMI/V_LXj8WhAOI/AAAAAAAAGL0/xoJEheNt1Xg7zPUmgXblJDlkuovymLHMQCEw/s1600/s-l500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i31QdDqNCMI/V_LXj8WhAOI/AAAAAAAAGL0/xoJEheNt1Xg7zPUmgXblJDlkuovymLHMQCEw/s400/s-l500.jpg" width="267" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villains:&nbsp;</b></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">The Big Man, Fancy Dan, The Ox, Montana</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Characters:&nbsp;</b></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">J.Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Betty Brant, Frederick Foswell,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Mr and Mrs Abbot, (plus a chorus of doctors, gangsters and hoods.)</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b><br /> </b></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Observations</b></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Aunt May’s next door neighbor is called Mrs Abbott (and not, for example, Mrs Watson.)</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Stan Lee doesn't re-read old issues, but relies on his memory: he references issue #9 but says it is called The Wrath of Electro, rather than A Man Called Electro.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Following the fight in issue #8, Flash makes two more attempts to be nice to Peter: visiting Aunt May in hospital, and warning him to be careful about speaking of the Big Man in public.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>He's got radioactive blood!&nbsp;</b>Peter gives Aunt May a person-to-person blood transfusion, which is massively anachronistic in 1964.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Peter has the same blood type as Aunt May, even though they are not blood relatives.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">This will become hugely significant the next time but one May is at death's door.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">On the splash page, Spider-Man "possesses&nbsp;the strength of countless spiders"; on page 21, he "has the proportionate strength of a spider".&nbsp;</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><b>Spins a Web: Any Size:</b> Spider-Man makes a web parachute and (briefly channeling his inner Bruce Wayne) a giant web spider to terrify a bad guy.</span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div></div><div lang="zxx"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div lang="zxx" style="page-break-before: always; text-align: justify;">If Amazing Spider-Man #9 &nbsp;is a slice of spider-life; then Amazing Spider-Man #10 is as conventional a piece of story-telling as we've seen. &nbsp;Indeed, it is hardly a Spider-Man story at all: if Parker had just been a photojournalist and the Enforcers had been more conventional hoods, everything would have unfolded in pretty much the same way. And this is no criticism. There is something gloriously surrealist about the way in which a small number of outlandish super-characters wander around a downbeat, realistic urban world and no-one pays much attention to them.&nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="page-break-before: always; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">A big man named the Big Man has taken control of the Syndicate which controls all the Crime in New York. Or possibly America. Or maybe just Forest Hills. Taking over the Syndicate is a pretty simple operation. He just tells his three mildly super-powered hench-people to intimidate seven gang leaders who have kindly assembled in his office in order to be intimidated. They immediately hand The Mob over to him.&nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gOalDQDRm1w/V_LXj3WF0OI/AAAAAAAAGL4/MRKDW_AtqnAc12Wu-80nhPzgiA-js4FjgCEw/s1600/ASM10%2B-%2BBig%2BMan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gOalDQDRm1w/V_LXj3WF0OI/AAAAAAAAGL4/MRKDW_AtqnAc12Wu-80nhPzgiA-js4FjgCEw/s400/ASM10%2B-%2BBig%2BMan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">Traditionally, Organized Crime makes its money from illegal gambling, extortion, bootleg booze, ladies of ill repute and even drugs. But Ditko gives us a montage of The Big Man’s men cracking safes, robbing banks at gunpoint and hijacking security vans. Spider-Man's main job is arresting jewel thieves, so it makes sense that one tall man in a mask is in charge of all the jewel thieves in the country. The universe is Manichean conflict between Goodies (Cops) and Baddies (Robbers) and The Big Man has taken over the Thieves Guild. Over the next few months, the Green Goblin and the Crime Master are going to be pretenders to the same throne. One of Stan Lee’s first acts after Ditko’s departure will be to install the Kingpin as Top Crimer.</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">So: who is the Big Man really? J. Jonah Jameson thinks it is Spider-Man and Spider-Man thinks it is J. Jonah Jameson. If you approach the story as a puzzle, then the solution is almost painfully transparent. Out of the blue, Jameson has acquired a columnist named Frederick Foswell who writes editorials about how awful Spider-Man is at his bosses behest. He is a rather a little man. This is the first time any Bugle Employee, apart from Betty, has been given a name. I suspect I was typical of first-time readers in assuming that he had been mentioned before. Lee’s habit of back-filling means that when we are told that Jameson's top columnist is called Foswell (or that Aunt May's neighbor is called Abbot) we are inclined to say "oh, yes, and he always has been."</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">It shouldn’t be a great surprise that a brand new character, introduced on page 7 of a “whodunit”— the only person who isn’t part of the regular cast — should turn out to be the masked villain. It works a lot better than it ought. For one thing, it isn’t presented as a riddle-story: there is too much else going on for us to spend much time trying to guess the Big Man’s identity. We are fairly cunningly misdirected — or at any rate watch Peter being misdirected — into thinking that the Big Man is Jameson. We don’t ever get an explanation as to why Jameson is walking past the Big Man’s hide out right after Spider-Man’s first fight with Enforcers: in a proper whodunit, that would count as Cheating, but here we hardly notice. When it comes to the big revelation, we are more interested in Peter — and Jameson’s — reaction then we are with the trick about how Foswell was the Big Man all along. (He was wearing special high heels to make himself look taller. Duh!)&nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">It really is a very elegant little tale.</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">The distinctly lackluster cover pitches the story as a straight fight between Spider-Man and the Enforcers. It oversells it quite heavily: apparently, they aren’t merely the most merciless foes Spider-Man has ever come up against, but the most merciless foes that anyone has ever encountered. Doctor Doom might have a word or two to say about that. So might Hitler. The splash page (as well as being a nicer piece of art) sells the story much better, with the main question not being "how can one lone crime-fighter hope to defeat the Enforcers" but “Who is the Big Man?????????????????” (17 question marks in original.) So once again, Ditko offers up a plot heavy, film noir suspense mystery tale, and Stan Lee promotes it as a wrestling match.</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">The Enforcers are, simply, the Big Man’s enforcers: three heavies who he uses to intimidate all the crime lords of New York and collect unpaid interest from teen-aged secretaries. Teams of villains are a tempting plot device for writers — rather than come up with a single, strong concept (a villain with wings, a villain with robot arms) you can bung three or more mediocre concepts together, and let them spend the issue trading wise cracks. So we have Very Strong Guy; Little Guy Who Knows Judo; and Guy With A Gimmick (a lasso). This leads to some very un-focussed scenes in which the villains take it in turns to describe their powers to Spider-Man. There is a big fight, but no distinct moment when the baddies get defeated. The Enforcers have not yet descended into bickering among themselves (as the Masters of Evil and the Frightful Four do incessantly). Stan Lee must have thought they were a good idea, because they make three return visits (although only as generic crooks to pad out another story.) &nbsp;At least they aren't as irritating as the Circus of Crime.</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">The Amazing Spider-Man is supposed to be set in New York; but it really happens on a very small stage. Peter Parker brags about knowing the Big Man’s identity, and sure enough the Enforcers come along and kidnap him. Betty Brant owes money to a loan shark, and sure enough the Enforcers turn up at the Bugle and bully her — at the exact moment while Peter Parker is in the office. Last time around we learned that J.J.J. had a personal account in a Forest Hills bank, right near where Peter Parker lives — which was, of course, the first bank which Electro robbed! This could be seen as a Dickensian level of coincidence, or just very lazy plotting. But I think that we have to read Spider-Man with a kind of double-vision. At one level, yes, this is Noo Yawk, and Spider-Man’s enemies are the worst enemies in the whole wide world. But at another level, Spider-Man is a local hero who lives in a village, and his enemies, though threatening and scary, are not terribly important in the grand scheme of things. Jameson is editor of a local newspaper and there is a local school and a local college and doubtless a friendly neighborhood grocery store as well. That’s why Jameson cares so much about Spider-Man and so little about, say, Ant Man. Spider-Man is making a big noise in his village and Jameson would like him to get off his lawn.&nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PwCBkNayPmQ/V_LXjiPkyYI/AAAAAAAAGLw/7fFnSxUg1YIXOEQ9zNPiIpj5YvYiuzmHACEw/s1600/asm010_pg21-22_montage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PwCBkNayPmQ/V_LXjiPkyYI/AAAAAAAAGLw/7fFnSxUg1YIXOEQ9zNPiIpj5YvYiuzmHACEw/s400/asm010_pg21-22_montage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">Last time, Spider-Man removed Electro’s mask and didn’t find anyone very interesting underneath. "Who is Electro?" was one of the big questions that no-one was really asking. &nbsp;This time, the question “Who is the Big Man?????????????????” (seventeen question marks) is shouted out on the first page, and to some extent drives the action. We are misdirected into thinking that he is a regular member of the supporting cast; but (in a sort of kind of twist) find out that he is the guy we only met this issue. But if anything, the big twist — the kind of thing that Stan Lee means when he talks about the realism of the comic — is that the hero completely fails to solve the mystery. "Some big brain I am." says Spider-Man "I not only have the proportionate strength of a Spider — I'm just about as dumb too!"&nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">As we've seen, this was to become a point of contention between Lee and Ditko. Ditko thought that in real life the bad guy never turns out to be old Mr McGrath who runs the funfair. Lee thought that stories needed better payoffs than real life. The same kind of thing will happen in issues 26 and 27. And then... Well, on one account, then there will be a big argument and the partnership will come to and end.</div><br /><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;">We are getting ahead of ourselves. But spiderphiles who know what I am talking about should take a long hard look at Frederick Foswell’s haircut. &nbsp;</div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkyOukRNzcc/V0LOiDE-srI/AAAAAAAAFyc/zduCPPxwUToUtPLLAO-57ZIRmGj5WI6XQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkyOukRNzcc/V0LOiDE-srI/AAAAAAAAFyc/zduCPPxwUToUtPLLAO-57ZIRmGj5WI6XQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /></a></div><div lang="zxx" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Please consider donating $1.00 a month to keep the writer of this blog in cups of coffee.</a></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/amazing-spider-man-10.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-7307360785588950053Sat, 01 Oct 2016 10:41:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.078+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man #9<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img height="50" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s200/patreon-logo.png" width="200" /></a></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>A Man Called Electro</i></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HazpmkxeCfs/V-z04iM6XKI/AAAAAAAAGLE/HJ7KMKmvzc4NVmd4gFI04HtXAiAXvsMWQCLcB/s1600/673445.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HazpmkxeCfs/V-z04iM6XKI/AAAAAAAAGLE/HJ7KMKmvzc4NVmd4gFI04HtXAiAXvsMWQCLcB/s400/673445.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain:</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Matt Dillon (Electro)</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Named Characters:</b></span><br /> Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, Aunt May, Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson <br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Observations:</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /><i>“Although we know so little about Spider-Man, he’s always been on the side of the law”.</i> The idea that there was a federal warrant for his arrest has been completely forgotten. <br /><br /><i>”I know it’s bad manners to drop in without an invitation, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me this once”.</i> Spider-Man’s banter is notably less irritating this time around. <br /><br />Spider-Man's red socks are&nbsp;separate&nbsp;from his blue tights. (And they are light&nbsp;enough to slip rubber shoes over!)</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">If Betty left high school "last year" then she must be around 17. Editorial comments on the letters page suggest that she is slightly younger than Peter.<br /><br /><b>Aunt May’s first illness!</b> Up to this point, she has been represented as elderly, but not especially sick or infirm. <br /><br /><b>Guess Aunt May’s Illness!</b>&nbsp;1: It’s only symptom is fatigue. 2: It is rare &nbsp;3: It requires medication, and the slightest delay in administering medication might be fatal. 5: It requires a major blood transfusion 6: Surgery returns the patient to full health in a matter of days.<br /><br /><b>Peter Parker’s Financial Position:</b> Parker sells fake pictures of Spider-Man for $1,000: Jameson says they are really worth $20,000. The $1,000 pays for the specialist surgeon. No other medical fees are mentioned.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">He can climb up walls; he has a spider-insignia on his costume; he'll soon have little spider-shaped tracking devices. But there is nothing particularly spidery about Spider-Man. He can indeed spin a web (any size) but real spiders mostly use their webs for trapping flies rather than making swamp shoes and canoes. Spiders aren't know for being strong and agile, and certainly not for having a telepathic radar sense. &nbsp;If Stan Lee had chosen a different name, most of the stories would have panned out very similarly. Fly-Man or Cockroach-Man might still have spotted that if you are going to touch a villain called Electro, some heavy duty rubber gloves are probably in order.<br /><br />But at a deeper, thematic level, "spiders" pull these comics together in a way that flies or cockroaches could not have.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We’ve already noted one example. In almost every episode, Spider-Man is defeated in his first confrontation with the bad guy, but comes back and beats the baddie on the second attempt (usually by thinking the situation through more carefully). Sometimes, it's a huge defeat; sometimes, a mere tactical withdrawal: but it always happens. So this month, Spider-Man is knocked out the first time he touches Electro's. The cover screams "the defeat of Spider-Man" but it isn’t that big a deal&nbsp;—&nbsp;he gets a bad shock&nbsp;from the electrically powered bad guy, but he recovers, and before the next battle he nips into a hardware store for some insulation. The moral — the one that the Human Torch hammered home in that school assembly — is "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again."&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">British school kids, at any rate, would instantly associate this maxim with the story of Robert the Bruce who is said to have been hiding out in a dour Scottish cave after having lost a couple of battles. According to the tale, he sees a spider trying to spin a web across the cave. The little arachnid fails twice, but succeeds on the third attempt, inspiring the Scottish King to have one last go at sending proud Edward's army homeward tae think again.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hcpja_xtXz8/V-z457q0aGI/AAAAAAAAGLQ/425NIqpFHGwmqLzGj7hbJwGCWVW3WmRdwCLcB/s1600/a7d52daf57f424ff7b6bc33c5218be94.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hcpja_xtXz8/V-z457q0aGI/AAAAAAAAGLQ/425NIqpFHGwmqLzGj7hbJwGCWVW3WmRdwCLcB/s640/a7d52daf57f424ff7b6bc33c5218be94.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The splash page of Amazing Spider-Man #9 is more or less the best thing that Steve Ditko has contributed to date, which is to say, more or less as good as comic-book artwork gets. Some Ditko splashes are simply the first frame of the story; some are teasers – showing you a scene that will come later in the story. But what he does best is symbolic splash pages like this; abstract visualizations of the entire episode.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the center of the picture are Peter Parker and Spider-Man: another full-body Gemini-split. This was how we left our hero at the end of issue #8, walking home after his mighty pleasant day. But here he looks panicked, scared. He’s definitely not whistling. He's surrounded by 20 or so faces: like one of those crowd reaction scenes which Ditko was so fond of. But there are not everyman faces but people we recognize: Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, Betty Brant.<br /><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">And (although I think I missed this fact for thirty five years) some of them appear <i>twice</i>.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That’s the genius of the scene. The faces on the left are looking at the Peter Parker side of the equation: Jameson looking indifferent; Betty smiling; Aunt May reaching out to him; the school kids looking hostile. The faces on the right are looking at the Spider-Man half: J.J.J. angrily denouncing him and (very sad and subtle this) Betty turning her back. There is a rather ambivalent collection of Ditko "men in the street": a woman in a ridiculous hat, obviously disapproving; a kid, obviously excited and an absolutely delightful cop who is stroking his chin, not quite able to make up his mind. In the bottom left (opposite poor Aunt May) shadowy figures representing the underworld are shooting at him. It would be over-egging the pudding to say that the fellow in the hat, who seems to be about 100 year old, more like a goblin than criminal, looks a lot like <i>the</i> Burglar, transformed into a bogeyman in Spider-Man’s imagination.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This isn't merely a symbolic representation of issue nine: it's a visual manifesto for the next dozen episodes of Amazing Spider-Man. Up until now, the Gemini Face has represented an internally divided self: the fact that one guy has somehow to be both shy Peter and arrogant Spider-Man. But Peter has chucked his glasses away and unified the two sides of the face; the stories, from now on, will be less about Parker's state of mind and more about the social world he inhabits; how presenting as two different people affects his human relationships.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I should be inclined to call Amazing Spider-Man #1 - #7 "the celebrity arc"; nearly every story is concerned, to some degree, with fame or notoriety. Amazing Spider-Man #8 - #19 might equally be labelled "the secret identity arc". Virtually every story has double-identities and disguises as a major theme.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man now has a fixed supporting cast of five characters: J. Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Betty Brant, Liz Allan and Flash Thompson. These five characters are increasingly going to form the matrix of the stories — a sophisticated plot-generating engine. Although I don’t think that Ditko ever went quite this far, you could easily imagine the splash from Spider-Man #9 redrawn, with each of the quintet having a different reaction to Parker and Spider-Man.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">J. JONAH JAMESON: Provides meal tickets for Peter. Prints editorials denouncing Spider-Man</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AUNT MAY: Coddles Peter. Recoils from Spider-Man</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">BETTY: Loves Peter. Fears Spider-Man.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">LIZ: Looks down on Peter. Has crush on Spider-Man.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">FLASH: Despises Peter. Worships Spider-Man.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Very probably, Andrew" I can hear you saying "But what does any of this have to with spiders."&nbsp;</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Simply this. If the first moral lesson that school children learn from spiders is perseverance – "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again", the second is certainly honesty. "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Which also comes from a story about Scotsmen, oddly enough.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for spider-man electro ditko" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/4b/74/7e/4b747efaec7c3fff5076d94d5c84e933.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Matt Dillon is struck by lightening while fixing electrical cables and finds that the two charges have canceled each other out. As you do. He discovers that he can throw sparks when he puts his hand through a wire coat hanger (what?) and makes himself a mesh suit which he wears under his costume (shades of 50 Shades of Grey!) His body is now a "living electrical generator" but he also seems to use some kind of electrical generator to charge himself up. The Science of all this is more than usually confused.<br /><br />Despite making himself a natty little yellow and green costume, and imaginatively calling himself "Electro" hes doesn't engage in any electricity themed naughtiness. He robs a bank, and then decides (for no reason at all) to free some criminals from what is quaintly described as the House of Correction in order to "get them to be my flunkies". Stan Lee just takes it for granted that if you get superpowers, then naturally, what you will do is rob banks. Unless you are one of those ones who think it’s your duty to stop other people robbing banks.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Electro is really only a sub-plot to this issue. Or, more accurately: Electro is one of three plot threads running side-by-side. Aunt May’s illness is one plot; Peter’s relationship with Betty is another; Electro’s attack on the house of correction is a third. The threads get tangled up, of course — Betty kindly supports Peter during May’s operation; Peter has to go and fight Electro to raise money for May’s operation; Betty is angry that Peter went to photograph the prison riot after she'd asked him not to. But there is no big unifying moment. Electro entirely refrains from causing any power-cuts while Aunt May is plugged into life-support.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think more than anything else this is what made me fall in love with Spider-Man. There is a six panel sequence (pages 5 - 6) in which Spider-Man goes out looking for criminals (to photograph). He gets caught in the rain; rinses out his wet costume in the sink; and nearly gets spotted by his neighbors when he hangs it out to dry. Nothing comes of this scene: it doesn't lead anywhere – it's just there. I suppose you could summarize the plot if you really wanted to: "Jameson is convinced that Spider-Man is Electro. Peter fakes incriminating pictures to pay for Aunt May’s surgery. Jameson is angry, but forgives him when he supplies better, genuine pictures, but now Betty is angry that he went on such a dangerous assignment." But that doesn’t really convey the tone of the episode at all. It just feels like a mesh or network of events.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What’s another word for a mesh or a network? Ah yes. A web.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wfNjLjLLuzM/V-z46BTvJPI/AAAAAAAAGLU/pquYaaiN8W8B6hU63oyn6U7iaUjyAbw0QCEw/s1600/asm9electro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wfNjLjLLuzM/V-z46BTvJPI/AAAAAAAAGLU/pquYaaiN8W8B6hU63oyn6U7iaUjyAbw0QCEw/s400/asm9electro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Life sure is funny!" say Spider-Man, after spraying Electro with a fire hose because, quote, electricty and water don't mix. "One of the most powerful criminals of all time! And what finally beat him! Just a dousing from a plain, ordinary, water hose.” In the very next panel, he unmasks Electro and complains “If this were a movie, I’d gasp in shock and then I’d say 'good heavens! The butler!' &nbsp;But this guy I never saw before.” It's never clear whether moments like this should be seen as Stan Lee congratulating himself for being so clever, or Stan Lee ticking off Steve Ditko for being so boring; but it's certainly true that A Man Called Electro doesn't have a big pay-off.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The question of whether Amazing Spider-Man should be more like a movie ("good heavens! My best friend’s father!") or more like real life ("this guy I never saw before!") is one that Writer Guy and Artist Guy were never going to agree on. But for the next year or so, to read Amazing Spider-Man is to fall into the flow of Peter Parker's life and stay there for a few hours.<br /><br />Not stories. Life. One thing after another.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s1600/spider_signal.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEQtyUac6gI/V11UZzZEnVI/AAAAAAAAF_Q/Y1zDEbPhPWcAZCMkUQSIbJWhGuR4qlCJQCPcB/s200/spider_signal.gif" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">Support the Spider-Man project on Patreon -- $1 per article, or $5 per month would make a huge difference...</a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img alt="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone" border="0" height="100" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s400/patreon-logo.png" width="400" /></a></span></div></div></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/10/amazing-spider-man-9.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-2229761964357576444Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:20:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:46.000+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man 8 (V)<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tvB2LJJRB7I/V7DyhuejHeI/AAAAAAAAGIw/Wa7k33zM8aApYnWPtzLVx8bceF9VDqfpgCK4B/s1600/amazingspiderman04-16_edited.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tvB2LJJRB7I/V7DyhuejHeI/AAAAAAAAGIw/Wa7k33zM8aApYnWPtzLVx8bceF9VDqfpgCK4B/s320/amazingspiderman04-16_edited.jpg" width="315" /></a>"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>In the neighborhood...</i></span><br /><br />"Neighbor" is, of course, a Biblical word (standing for the Greek <i>plēsion</i>) meaning "a member of the community". Loving your neighbor as yourself was said by Jesus to be the whole heart of the Torah. The Old Testament arguably taught that "neighbor" meant only other Jewish people; the New Testament arguably teaches that everyone in the world is everyone else neighbor.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The word "neighborhood" originally meant simply neighborliness or the state of being neighborly; but by the middle of 19th century it had acquired the present sense of "locality" "home" or "the part of the world where all your friends live". &nbsp;It wasn't until the late 20<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">th</span>&nbsp;century that the abbreviation <i>'hood</i> came to mean a specifically black neighborhood – a ghetto.<br /><br />In 1964 the phrase "your friendly neighborhood" was already a well-worn cliches. Sam’s Market in Glenfield, Los Angeles was advertising itself as "your friendly neighborhood grocer" in 1958; the National Association of Retail Druggists was talking about "your friendly neighborhood drug store" in 1947. The earliest example I could find was a Methodist Church in Wisconsin which claimed to be "your friendly neighborhood church" as far back as 1935.&nbsp;Ed Wood's infamous movie Glen or Glenda refers ironically to "your friendly neighborhood milkman" (he's actually sleeping with the women of the neighborhood while their husbands are at work.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back in issue #4, Spider-Man sucked the Sandman into the vacuum cleaner with the words "Here’s the first part of your education courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." I suppose the joke is that Spider-Man is unique; every&nbsp;neighborhood&nbsp;doesn’t have one; and that the Bugle still presents him as anything but friendly. Or perhaps "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" just sound a little like "friendly neighborhood milkman". It's funny: but not very funny.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On page 2 of the Torch story in issue 8. Spider-Man tries to scare the Human Torch’s guests with a giant bat. (Why a bat, for heaven’s sake? Why not a spider?) The Torch says that it’s made of threads, and Spider-Man replies "Not threads, sonny boy!…Webs! Gen-u-wine Spider-Man webs!…The kind your friendly neighborhood grocer doesn’t sell". "The kind your grocer doesn’t sell" sounds as if it ought to be a well-known advertising slogan, but I can’t track down any example of anyone using it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man’s web is, of course, a secret formula known only to himself. He has spent a lot of photo money developing it in his bedroom. &nbsp;Obviously, they are completely unique. So it's funny, but not very funny, to claim that you couldn't by similar webs in your local supermarket.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the joke will run and run. Spider-Man will increasingly use it as a catchphrase. It will be referenced in the lyrics of the Spider-Man TV theme song; and decades later it will be the title of a spin-off comic. And it still won't be very funny.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-llHt1HEyUuw/V7Dz-5zSXBI/AAAAAAAAGI4/j06QL3chsus9MwwgWdQkpizD8Ye-5-NrQCK4B/s1600/ASM8%2B-%2BSpider-Man%252C%2BParty%2BCrasher.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-llHt1HEyUuw/V7Dz-5zSXBI/AAAAAAAAGI4/j06QL3chsus9MwwgWdQkpizD8Ye-5-NrQCK4B/s400/ASM8%2B-%2BSpider-Man%252C%2BParty%2BCrasher.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsHte9Abh00/V7D2kMVVjWI/AAAAAAAAGJI/Q-rIhQychCMj5S8pT-YLYD7mTR0XOEfjACK4B/s320/download.png" width="320" /></a></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/08/neighbourhood.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-1447875240834141717Wed, 17 Aug 2016 21:57:00 +00002016-12-06T01:15:45.995+00:00COMIC BOOKSComicsMr Stan LeeSPIDER-MANAmazing Spider-Man 8 (IV)<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Spider-Man Tackles The Torch</i></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QWRG84Jin60/V7DbNpPGKsI/AAAAAAAAGH4/dFlCCoLW8MUcjbgjxIrvN5LpiFj-FDEJQCLcB/s1600/032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QWRG84Jin60/V7DbNpPGKsI/AAAAAAAAGH4/dFlCCoLW8MUcjbgjxIrvN5LpiFj-FDEJQCLcB/s400/032.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Villain:&nbsp;</b></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">None<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Guest Stars:&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">The Human Torch, plus Mr Fantastic, The Thing and the Invisible Girl<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Named characters:&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">Doris Evans<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Observations:&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;courier new&quot; , &quot;courier&quot; , monospace;">This is the first episode of Spider-Man in which none of the regular supporting cast, including Peter Parker, appears. <br /><br />Spider-Man briefly met the Torch in issues #1 and #3 and has had an away fixture in the Torch's own comic (Strange Tales Annual #2)<br /><br /><b>Spins a web, any size:</b> Spider-Man uses his web to a: a bat puppet b: two parachutes, which double as sand scoops; a hung glider; a web heart for the Invisible Girl. </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter Parker has thrown away his specs, punched Flash Thompson, and resolved to be more like Spider-Man in his dealings with the world from now on. He’s had a mighty pleasant day having a fight with the scientific marvel of the age. So he thinks to himself: “What shall I do next? I know! I shall round the day off by picking a fight with the most famous celebrity on the planet.” He is so far gone that he not only spars with Torch (who is a near contemporary and who he knows a bit): he also tries to web Mr Fantastic’s arms and pick a fight with the Thing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Stan Lee were allowed to "dream up" a Spider-Man story on his own, without Steve Ditko to flesh it out for him...well, wonder no longer. Here it is. Kirby penciled this story, presumably in his sleep. Ditko is credited as inker. No Peter Parker. No supporting cast. No plot or set up of any kind. A nine page fight scene, without motivation or resolution. Spider-Man turns up at the Torch’s posh house and plays a stupid prank. Reed Richards turns up and tells them to stop. That’s literally it.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One can't know, of course. But I can imagine Stan going to Jack and saying “Hey, Jack, what if Spider-Man and the Human Torch had a fight? Maybe Spider-Man gate-crashes one of Johnny's parties?” and Jack giving him precisely that: a nine page fight scene. Whereas if Stan had gone to Steve and said “Hey, Steve, what if Spider-Man had a fight with Doctor Doom? Maybe Doctor Doom kidnaps one of his school mates?” Steve would have produced a complicated and funny back story to set up the fight.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spider-Man with Peter Parker doesn't work. Peter Parker is a wimp, a cry-baby and sometimes a jerk. Spider-Man is an arrogant braggart. And sometimes a jerk. But somewhere in the space between the two of them is a reasonable human being: a hero. Spider-Man’s bravado is bearable because it is offset by thought-balloons in Parker’s voice; Parker’s whining is bearable because the Gemini-mask reminds us that he is also Spider-Man. Take Parker away, and Spider-Man just comes across as an idiot. There is none of the wit and humour that he showed when fighting for his life against the Vulture. It’s just two alleged heroes sneering at each other.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>— Okay you animated insect! You asked for it! Here I come!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>— Mercy me! I’d better prepared a little welcome for such a big, bad, blazing bird-brain.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is just the sort of thing Flash Thompson might have said.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SU_AbQGtf-Q/V7DcXkvo5bI/AAAAAAAAGIE/K-WjLXUi-SgUsnmL2TmFfmD9833VpoqzACK4B/s1600/034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SU_AbQGtf-Q/V7DcXkvo5bI/AAAAAAAAGIE/K-WjLXUi-SgUsnmL2TmFfmD9833VpoqzACK4B/s320/034.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps, like Peter’s bout with Flash, this needs to be looked at in terms of masculine ego; of two guys around 16 or 17 sorting out where they are in the pecking order. Spider-Man <i>deliberately</i> acts like a jerk to give the Torch an excuse to hit him, which gives him an excuse to hit him back. They are so near to being equals in the superhero world, they can’t be friends until they’ve had a fight. We don’t doubt that if a bad guy showed up they’d fight him alongside each other. Johnny and Ben scrap all the time, but Stan Lee assures us that they’d risk their lives for each other without question. Mr Fantastic intervenes before the fight is over, so neither Johnny nor Spider-Man are top dog. The feud continues. &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fight itself is tolerably watchable, but it relies too heavily on gimmicks. The Torch creates objects with his flames, and Spider-Man creates objects out of web to counter them. It’s a lazy way of writing; too much like one of those Green Lantern stories when the goodie calls up a giant green rolled up newspaper to thwack the baddie, and the baddie calls up a giant green umbrella to shield himself.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not Spider-Man. This is not a tale of sheer fantasy so real you’ll feel it’s happening to you. This is Spider-Man the corporate symbol, wrenched from his context and forced to appear as guest star in a story where he doesn’t belong. One story like this doesn’t do much harm. Next month, the real Peter Parker will be back, fretting about Aunt May’s medical bills. But in a few years this kind of thing will become so prevalent that we'll barely be able to remember when Peter Parker was a character as opposed to a guest-star opportunity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><br /></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0wscAxeQJkM/VViArjmi9LI/AAAAAAAAFRc/Zi0Ufwj1jg48as1VzsIhbp_ndXPsPcntgCPcB/s320/patreon-logo.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Rilstone">This project is supported by my 40 generous Patreon fans. Why not become number 41?</a></div><br /></div></div>http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2016/08/amazing-spider-man-8-iv.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Rilstone)0